Lost and Found

by Karen Greim Mullian
©December 2005

Moving the frost-blackened bunch of flowers he had brought last week to one side, Daniel Jackson set the paper maché vase holding a large bouquet of fresh flowers in their place. They brightened up the dismal military cemetery on this grey and chilly late March afternoon.

The plain brass plaque that lay flush to the ground read:

Of all people, Janet Fraiser was the last person Daniel thought he'd live to see buried. He realized for the first time gazing at the marker that she was two and a half years older than he was when a Jaffa shot her six weeks ago. He must have known, but her age had never mattered to him. He had been too polite to ever ask, and he suspected that she had been just vain enough not to mention it.
Every Thursday but one – when he, Sam, and Teal'c had flown to Los Angeles – Daniel had stood in this spot and told Doctor Fraiser all the latest news from the SGC. This was the fifth time since Doctor Fraiser's death that Daniel had visited her grave. Odd that, despite his training as an archaeologist, he hated modern cemeteries. He had no problems excavating the burial site of an ancient Egyptian or holding in his hands the bones of a man or woman dead for thousands of years and pondering what his or her life had been like. Yet he'd visited his parents' graves only three times in thirty years. Since childhood, Death had been an all-too-constant companion, gripping his thin shoulder with its icy hand and carrying off too many of those he loved.

He missed Janet terribly. He hadn't been in love with her. He would never allow himself that luxury again, but he had allowed himself to care. She had become one of his dearest friends at the SGC, had been his doctor for seven years, tended him when he was sick or injured, fought to save his life when he died two years ago, and had welcomed him back when The Others gave him a second chance.

It had happened so quickly, there was nothing he could do to save her. She had been just out of reach, a little more than an arm's length away, when she took the staff blast but close enough that he had been sickened by the acrid smell of her burning flesh. She had drawn her last breath in his arms, never knowing what had hit her. When the corpsmen tried to take her from him, he had refused to let her go. He had carried her back through the Gate himself, half blind from smoke and tears that he wouldn't let the airmen and soldiers around him see. His closest friends, trained warriors all of them, had found consolation in one another, but for him there was no solace. There rarely was when he lost one of his own, one of his very small, intimate circle of friends.

And now another of his friends was gone, and again he knew that helpless feeling.

"Hey," Daniel said softly, looking down at still unsettled mound of earth. "I've got some good news, some bad news, and some really bad news this time. First the bad news: Big changes at the SGC. General Hammond's been replaced. You'll probably find this hard to believe – by a civilian. Doctor Elizabeth Weir. Not that I've got anything against civilians. I mean, I'm a civilian. And she's really, really smart. I think you'd like her. You should have seen her handle Kinsey. It was priceless. Uh...well...that-that's the good news."

The archaeologist paused for a few moments as if listening. Then his eyebrows knitted together, and he fought for control of his bottom lip.

"I wasn't going to do this," he sniffed, trying to smile as if she could see him.

He made a face, but it didn't stop the tears he usually could only release when he was alone. Even in a cemetery where people were expected to cry, he tried not to show any emotion. When he was eight and they were burying his parents, his grandfather Nick had stiffly told him that boys don't cry. He had cried anyway. He had been afraid then, and he was afraid now.

"The really bad news, you ask?" his voice breaking.

The tears were coming so fast now that he could hardly breathe.

"Jack's gone," he gasped. "We did everything we could to find the Lost City, but it wasn't any of the places where we looked. All we know is that it wasn't where we were. We beat Anubis this time, but what was the use? We had to leave Jack behind. Sam's working on something called a Signal Impulse Amplifier. She thinks it will help us make contact with the Asgard so, hopefully, they can pick Jack up from the Ancient Outpost in the Antarctic and get all the Ancient knowledge out of his head before it kills him."

He took a long, deep breath and tilting his head to one side said, "I'm sorry. I didn't come here to complain. I just wanted you to know about Jack. Maybe you could look out for him. You know how he gets. I miss him, Janet. He's the best friend I ever had, and I miss him. You wouldn't believe how quiet the SGC is without him around. It's like nobody knows what to say. I think we're all still in shock."

Daniel shook his head and let his eyes wander into the distance.

"You know, I used to hate it when he fiddled around with the artifacts in my office. He broke that three-thousand-year-old Sumerian flute trying to play it. I was furious with him." Daniel paused and shrugged. "I couldn't stay mad at him for long. He'd always say something really absurd and make me laugh. Most of the time. Only once when he didn't – when he shot Reese. I know he did it to save me, but he needn't have bothered. I was dead within two weeks anyway. I was still angry with him when I died. We never really settled that. Now I'm afraid we never will."

He pulled off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose to try to regain his composure, but it was useless.

"I don't know what to do, Janet," Daniel confessed, tears streaming down his face. "Nothing I do seems to matter anymore. The SGC's been shut down. I go there every day and shuffle papers from one spot on my desk to another, and none of it matters. Nothing I've ever done seems to matter. I wish to God I had never heard of the Stargate."

The still wintry wind picked up, rustling the fresh flowers at the head of the grave. Angrily, he snatched the container of dead ones and, heading back to his red Jeep, dumped it in the pile of other dead flowers by the curb that the caretakers would collect at the end of the week.

2.
Sunday night was trash night. Daniel went from room to room emptying waste cans. He stopped and stared at the one next to his desk in the study. It was overflowing as usual. Amazing how the stuff seemed to breed whenever he left the room.

He bent over to retrieve some crumpled yellow papers from the floor and found himself at eye level with the stack of file folders he'd brought home to work on over the weekend. With the SGC in shut-down mode, they were on an eight-to-five, Monday-through-Friday work schedule. Every day was pretty much the same as the one before, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. There'd been enough changes in the past month and a half to last him the rest of his life. Mundane was good. It was predictable. It was boring.

The pile of folders stared back at him, and he felt a little guilty for neglecting them all weekend. He hadn't opened one of them. Not that it would be difficult to pull an all-nighter. He didn't sleep much anyway. He couldn't remember when he'd slept through the night since Janet's death. Now with Jack gone, it was worse. And there were so many other things to worry about. The SGC was probably closing for good, if he were any judge of things. For the military personnel at Stargate Command, it wouldn't be too bad. They'd still have jobs. The civilians were pretty much out of luck. Most of them had families, mortgages – he had just gotten the house, and there were car payments. For the first time in his life he was mainstream.

The worst thing about the whole insane mess was that with the Gate closed, there was no way of knowing what was going on out there. That should make a lot of people nervous, but it seemed that he was the only one concerned. The Goa'uld certainly weren't going to sit idly by, taking Anubis's defeat at the hands of the Tau'ri gracefully. The playing field had been leveled; and the System Lords, like the jackals they were, were undoubtedly already vying with one another for control, right this minute, as he emptied his trash. Thanks to the infinite wisdom of The Powers That Be, Earth was cut off, out of the loop, up a creek without a paddle. One or all of the Goa'uld could be heading toward Earth in ships right now, and the Tau'ri would be defenseless. With the Stargate closed, Kinsey's Pandora's box was sealed up tighter than a drum, only Hope hadn't been kept inside. By closing off its first line of defense, Earth had shot itself in the foot. Daniel had no doubt that the sharks could smell the blood from the other side of the galaxy. The human race would be devoured alive. When the end came, it wasn't going to be pretty.

From the study he moved on to the living room to empty the waste basket beside the piano. Funny, when he could remember little else from before his death, he had remembered how to play the piano. Shortly after he came back with SG-1 from Vis Uban, Sam had them all over to dinner, and Daniel discovered the piano crammed into her small sitting room at the back of the house where they sat down after dinner to talk. He had eyed the antique spinet with curiosity, and Jack asked if he knew what it was.

"I think I used to," Daniel had answered. "It looks familiar."

Jack pushed back the lid to reveal the keys, and a light came into Daniel's eyes that none of them had ever seen before. Jack poked out the notes for "Hang on, Sloopy."

"You kept it in tune," Daniel said to Sam, amazed and grateful.

Grey eyes glistening, Sam only smiled. She had spent the last year hoping against hope that she'd see him again and had done everything in her power to keep the things he had loved in good repair. Her joy at having him back among them was outweighed only by seeing him sit at the piano and play a Mozart sonata, slightly more challenging than a bad song from the sixties, without hitting a wrong note.

Daniel let go of the trash bag and pulled out the stool. He hadn't touched the piano in a while. SG-1 had been kept pretty busy, both off-world and on base, in the weeks immediately following Janet's death; and since their trek to Antarctica there didn't seemed to be much point. Now he raised the cover and sat down. His long slender fingers settled on the keys, but he couldn't make them do anything. He didn't want them to do anything. He didn't want to break the silence that filled this room, that filled the whole house.

Suddenly, he felt the keys under his right hand move as the notes to that stupid song Jack had played almost played themselves.

He pulled his hands away and slammed down the lid. As he jumped away from the piano, he whacked his right shin on the coffee table, knocking over a couple of the finely carved chess pieces from the beautiful mother-of-pearl inlaid board. The game remained unfinished, just the way they had left it the last time he and Jack had played. Jack had been ebony, Daniel abalone. In the middle, Jack had suddenly lost interest and said he had to go home, and the next day they had gone off-world to find the Repository of the Ancients. Since his own return, Daniel had memorized the positions of the pieces and now put the fallen chessmen back on the board exactly where they belonged. He wanted everything to be ready so that they could resume playing when Jack came back.

The unintentionally self-inflicted pain in his shin was crippling. Daniel grabbed the green trash bag by the neck and limped off to the kitchen. For a moment he stared at the kitchen table. It was piled high with all his canned goods and boxed foods. He'd forgotten he'd cleared the cabinets this morning because of a pervasive mouse problem he'd discovered when SG-1 had returned from P3C-708 a month ago. He'd tried every remedy known to man and a few known only to Jaffa, and to date not a single rodent had given up its life. Daniel was all for sending them through the Gate to a Goa'uld homeworld, but he couldn't catch them dead, much less alive. Jack had suggested waiting up after dark, then shooting them when they invaded the kitchen, but he'd had a few too many beers the night he came up with that idea. At this moment, looking at his kitchen table Daniel would give anything for his Beretta, better still a P90.

He'd scrubbed the cabinets from top to bottom, the smell of mouse droppings making him a little sick, and left the doors open to let the shelves air dry. Then he'd taken the Jeep to the carwash and run a few other errands. When he came home, the cabinets still weren't dry, so he'd done a load of laundry and gone to the University Library for the afternoon, totally forgetting about the state of his kitchen, since he rarely went there except for a cup of coffee.

Hastily, he dropped the trash bag and started putting stuff back on the shelves. He'd never gone totally hungry in his life; but there had been a few times, especially in college and grad school, when money for food was pretty scarce. Over the years he learned to be economical when it came to grocery shopping and not buy things just because they were on sale, so when three jars of hot salsa surfaced, along with half a dozen cans of corned beef hash, Daniel didn't even remember buying them. This was stuff Jack liked to eat – sometimes together. The thought of them separately made Daniel's stomach knot up.

He was about to open the trash bag to get rid of them when something stopped him. Jack had bought them when Daniel still lived in the studio apartment across town.

"Survival food," Jack had called it.

"In that case I hope the Gould wipe us out pretty quickly," Daniel had replied. "I don't think I'd want to have to survive on corned beef hash and salsa."

"You live on coffee and air," Jack had said. "No chance the neighbors would be eyeing you with that lean and hungry look."

The four of them – Jack, Sam, Teal'c, and Daniel – had talked for hours that night last summer in his apartment about what they'd do if the Goa'uld did attack, of where they might go if they had the chance to escape through the Stargate, and how they'd manage when they got where they were going. Each had expressed a planetary preference. Teal'c said he'd return to Chulak. Sam said she'd try to find the Tok'ra and her father. Jack thought he might look up Laira which made the others groan. When Daniel mentioned Abydos, a deadly silence invaded his living room that Jack quickly covered over by saying he thought it would be best if they all stuck together, wherever they went. Sam said she'd agree only if they all agreed to become her love slaves and swear their allegiance to her. That caused the men to remind her loudly of the inappropriateness of her suggestion, and that led to a whole other conversation. It would be a while before he learned the truth about what had happened to Abydos because he had trusted a Goa'uld.

An unspecified quantity of hours and beer later, a stone-cold sober Teal'c and a just plain stoned Jack were arguing over the finer points of battle tactics. Sam kept babbling on about Caesar's Commentaries, while Daniel, three sheets to the wind and taking on water after only two and a half bottles of Guinness, tried desperately to explain somewhat incoherently to all of them that the modern translation of the Commentaries was inaccurate because it had been made from a Late Latin translation of Caesar's original writings. As usual, nobody paid him any mind, and he silently dragged himself into the bathroom where he woke up around noon the next day with one arm embracing the bottom of the toilet. Someone had thrown a blanket over him and put a pillow under his head. He chose not to think about what had gone on around him while he slept when he noticed the sink faucet dripping, the bath towels in disarray, and the toilet paper roll empty.

Daniel dragged out a chair and sat down heavily at the table, looking at the canned goods helplessly. He pushed them to one side and put his head down on his arm. He was so tired, and there was so much to do. The files in the study all needed cover summaries by tomorrow morning, and all of this stuff on the table had to be put away. And he'd left the laundry in the washer this afternoon. That was going to smell fine.

He got up from the table and picked up the cans that had toppled onto the floor. One of them was baked beans. More of Jack's damned survival food. Swearing loudly in Abydonian, he raised his arm and hurled the can out of his sight, not caring what he hit. A moment later, he heard a crash and rushed into the living room to see what precious artifact had just been sacrificed to his anger. In the doorway he stopped, his mouth open. The carved chess pieces were scattered on the floor around the coffee table, and a deep white gash glared at him from the chessboard. An ebony knight – Jack called them horses – and an abalone bishop lay broken in two on either side of the now dented can.

Falling to his knees, Daniel gathered up the broken pieces and, clutching them in his hands, hugged them to his chest.

"Oh, Jack," he whispered, a deep ripping ache cutting through his heart. "What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

3.
Daniel pulled away from the curb in his red Jeep and turned left at the end of the street. In the cupholder beside him was a two-cup travel mug filled with espresso. It would be empty by the time he reached the Interstate, but thankfully, there was a Starbucks just before the on ramp. Of course, there was no right turn back onto the access road, and he'd have to drive five blocks out of his way to get back on track, but it was worth it. When he first came back from Abydos with SG-1, following Sha're's capture, he'd lived on coffee for what must have been months just to keep himself from dreaming. He'd solved that problem recently by simply giving up sleep altogether.

By the time he reached Starbucks, he was nearly half an hour late. Doctor Weir was a stickler for punctuality. He'd crawled out of bed at four-thirty after another sleepless night and spent nearly two hours going over the files now stacked on the backseat of his car. That left him about twenty minutes to shower and dress before heading off to what he was coming to think of as Deadwood Mountain. For a place that was supposed to be shut down for only three months, he must have single-handedly destroyed an entire northwest forest on reports, charts, and tables that nobody would ever read, much less understand. No wonder Jack hated paperwork so much.

He pulled up to the Starbucks drive-thru and rubbed his hands over his face. He could hardly see, he was so tired. The last thing he needed was images of departed friends jumping up in front of him.

A quivering young female voice asked if he'd mind waiting a few minutes.

"We've just turned on the lights, sir," the voice explained. "It'll be about fifteen minutes. I'm sorry."

"S'okay," Daniel said, raising his travel mug to his lips. "I'll finish what I've got here, then I'll come inside. How's that?"

"Thank you, sir." The voice really began to waver. "I'm really sorry. My dog died last night..."

As he heard the young woman dissolve into tears, Daniel mumbled some sincere but ineffectual words of sympathy and pulled out of the drive-thru lane, gripping the steering wheel as if it were a life preserver as he headed toward the parking space. For some reason he overshot the mark. Just in time he pushed in the clutch and slammed on the brake, or he'd have ended up driving over the curb and into the middle of traffic on the access road.

This was a stupid place to put a Starbucks, he thought miserably.

Oh, God, the poor kid. She'd just lost her dog. He'd never had a dog of his own, but he had been devastated when three of his neon tetra's didn't survive the move from the aquarium in his studio apartment to the one at the new house.

He grabbed a napkin out of the glove compartment and blew his nose, then tossed the napkin onto the dashboard.

Pull yourself together, he admonished himself.

"They were only fish."

Daniel froze.

"What? Am I right?"

"Jack?"

"Daniel?"

"I took my meds this morning," Daniel murmured to reassure himself. "I know I did."

"Brings back memories, doesn't it?" Jack asked with that quirky smile of his.

Daniel's head slowly followed his eyes to the right. Yep. It was Jack all right, sitting there in the passenger seat.

Jerking his thumb toward the coffee shop, Daniel said, "I'm going over there to get my coffee. You want anything?"

"Nope. I'm good." Jack's hands went up in the air. "What? This doesn't remind you of anything?"

Daniel asked slowly, "Wha-a-at?"

"When you were an energy-based noncorporeal being, maybe?"

"You're ascended," Daniel said doubtfully, lowering his chin slightly. "And here, I thought you were an hallucination."

"Actually, I am an hallucination. You're sleep deprived. You really should consider getting some rest."

"Of course. What was I thinking?" He opened the car door to get out. "You'll be here when I get back?"

"Oh, yeah."

"That's what I was afraid of. Want me to put the radio on, or can you do that for yourself?"

"No, you'd better do it. Hallucinations have problems with the push-button things."

"Oh," Daniel replied, switching on the radio and finding the sports station Jack liked. His brows came together and his mouth squeezed up small, suspiciously. He started to stretch out his index finger, but Jack held up his hand to stop him.

"A-a-a-a-a. There's no touching." Jack said.

Eyeing Jack sidelong, Daniel said slowly, "Okay...I'm just gonna go get my order."

He drained the travel mug, dropped it on the floor of the front seat, and got out of the car. At the front door of the coffee shop, he took a deep breath before going inside, half-afraid he'd come face-to-face with the grieving owner of the late, lamented dog. The cashier who greeted him, however, didn't look like she was in mourning. In fact, she didn't look like she'd ever known a sad day in her life. She smiled at Daniel as if he were the only man in the world, and to his surprise he didn't find the diamond in her nose or the ring through her bottom lip the least bit off-putting.

"May I help you, sir?" she asked, her darkly made-up eyes flashing at him.

"Uh, maybe," he answered, licking his suddenly dry lips.

She tilted her head and smiled.

"Oh, yeah, two double espressos to go, please," Daniel said, speaking much too quickly.

The girl's smile tantalized him until she said, "You're pretty cool for an older guy."

He handed her a ten-dollar bill, tempted to tell her with his most ingratiating smile to keep the change for her college education. She couldn't be more than eighteen, and in most states in the Union he could be arrested for thinking what he was thinking. What little of his fragile male ego he'd managed to retain over the past few years deflated as he turned sharply on his heel and left the shop.

He looked at his watch. Seven-fifty. It didn't matter. He was already late. What was Doctor Weir going to do to him? Fire him? They were all probably going to lose their jobs by mid-summer anyway.

Despite the unintended crack about his maturity, he couldn't quite dismiss the girl from his mind entirely. She gave him something else to think about besides the fact that he was going nuts. It wasn't everyday he had a full-blown hallucination. In fact it had been years since that last happened. Hopefully, by the time he reached the car, the hallucination would have removed itself from his front seat. Doctor Weir would just have to accept that he was having a bad day. Everything would be fine after he'd had his second cup of double espresso. Maybe his hands would even stop shaking.

From the outside the Jeep looked empty. Thank God, he thought with a deep sigh. He rested one cup on the roof, opened the car door, and got in.

"Forget something?"

Daniel jumped so high he hit his head on the ceiling, squeezing the large cup in his hand at the same time. Hot espresso bubbled up through the lid and trickled down his fingers. He put the dented cup in the round slot in the console and dabbed at his tender fingers with the same napkin he'd used to blow his nose.

"Geez, don't do that," he said sharply, rubbing his scalp.

"What?"

"Startle me like that."

"Okay. Never mind," Jack said agreeably.

"Okay. What did I forget?"

"Coffee on the roof."

"Oh."

He climbed out of the car to retrieve the second cup.

"So Vancouver beat Calgary last night," Jack informed him when he sat down again.

Satisfied that the second cup was secure in its place, Daniel asked, "You've come back from wherever it is you are supposed to be to tell me about a hockey game?"

"Hah!" Jack said, pointing his finger. "You do pay attention to sports."

"Okay, so I put the game on last night. Don't ask me the score. I didn't pay that much attention. I was pretty busy. So answer my question."

"No."

"No what?"

"I was answering your question. No, I didn't come back just to tell you about last night's hockey game."

"What then? Are you ascended now?"

"You used to complain that I didn't listen to you. I said I'm an hallucination. Actually, I'm still in Antarctica."

"Then what are you doing in my car?"

"Seatbelt," Jack cautioned as Daniel backed out of the parking space.

He buckled up with one hand, then headed for the side street exit.

"This is the stupidest place to put a Starbucks," Jack said.

"So," Daniel said at the first stop sign, "what are you doing in my car?"

"Miss me?"

"Jack."

"Daniel."

"Yes, as a matter of fact," Daniel answered. At the next corner, he stopped and asked, "Jack, am I losing my mind?"

"Do I look like a psychiatrist to you?"

Daniel closed his eyes. He'd almost forgotten. It was Thursday. At two o'clock he had his weekly appointment with Doctor Lambert, MacKenzie's replacement. And at four o'clock the cemetery. He preferred the cemetery.

"Jack, can you please leave?"

"Is that what you want?" Jack asked.

Just before turning at the next street, Daniel opened the first espresso and swallowed a mouthful. It was too hot. He put the lid back on and shoved the cup back into the holder.

"What I want," he said plaintively, "is world peace. What I've got is an hallucination on my way to work and a coffee burn on my knuckle."

"You're exhausted, Daniel," Jack said again with a little concern in his voice. "You need to get some sleep."

"Oh, I tried, but I had to give it up. You see, my friends keep dying – first Janet, then you –"

"I'm not dead, Daniel," Jack reminded him. "Just frozen."

"And while you're on ice, we're – no, I'm supposed to do what?"

At the last stop sign before the access road, Daniel sipped at his espresso again.

"Get on with your life," Jack suggested.

"I don't think I'm ready to do that. I don't much like change."

"Do you realize that we've had this entire conversation in Ancient?" Jack asked.

"Why?"

"It's the only language I can speak at the moment."

"Jack, why are you here?"

"You really want me to leave?"

"Yes, I do."

Daniel looked to his left at the oncoming cars and entered the right-hand lane, picking up speed as he quickly shifted gears.

"Come on, you miss me. I know you already said it, but say it again."

"Jack, what the hell are you doing here?" he shouted.

"Daniel, look out!" Jack shouted back at him.

As Starbucks came into view up ahead on the right, a grey SUV sped out of the parking lot onto the access road. Daniel slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel to the left, skidding across three lanes of traffic to avoid hitting the SUV. The red Jeep hit the guardrail on the inside lane and was suddenly airborne. Unlike a tel'tak, there was no way to pull the Jeep back up as it suddenly began its descent. It clipped the guardrail on the other side of the median and bounced into the westbound traffic. The airbag deployed, smacking him in the face. It hurt like hell. The impact took out the steering column and jammed the steering wheel into Daniel's chest. A moment later, a tractor trailer horn blared loudly, then diminished as it passed just as the Jeep slid across the highway.

"Doppler effect," he said to himself, thinking how absurd that he'd even remember such a thing at a time like this.

The Jeep came to a jarring halt at the base of a clump of trees at the bottom of an embankment. On impact, Daniel's head hit the side window, and he saw stars. The driver's side door swung open, letting in a blast of chilly morning air. The horn wouldn't stop, and the car alarm went off. Stunned, Daniel tried to look to his right and found it difficult to move.

"Jack?"

"I'm right here, Daniel," Jack said from Daniel's left. "Good thing you buckled up."

Jack was kneeling beside him just inside the open car door. The cold hand he pressed against Daniel's aching head was soothing in a very odd, out-of-body sort of way.

"Jack, my head really hurts."

His glasses askew on his face, he tried to push the airbag out of his way so he could reach the cell phone in his coat pocket. When he pulled it out, the button lights glowed. Something had splattered onto his lenses, blurring his vision. No, it was in his eyes. He wanted to wipe it away, but he couldn't move his left arm. Finally, right hand trembling, he managed to dial the SGC's emergency number.

"Hi," he said with a surprisingly calm but halting voice. "Y-yes, hello. This is Doctor...Doctor Daniel Jackson, and I was j-just involved in an ac-accident on the I-25 access road right near the S-Starbucks ...Yes, I think I m-m-might be hurt pretty badly actually...head's b-bleeding...no...no, there's no one else with me..."

He disconnected the cell and let it fall from his hand.

"Jack?"

"Yes, Daniel?"

"Will you stay with me until someone comes?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think I can wait around until then."

"Jack?"

"Yes?"

"I'm scared, Jack."

Jack stroked his friend's blood-soaked hair and smiled reassuringly.

"I know you are, Daniel. That's why I'm here."

4.
Familiar faces greeted the archaeologist when he slowly regained consciousness. He heard Sam call to Doctor Warner that he was awake. Teal'c and Sam stepped aside as the kindly Doctor Warner checked Daniel's pupils, pulse, and respiration.

"Still a little slow," the doctor commented without any undue alarm as he lay Daniel's right arm down on the bed. "Pupils are clear and reactive. The CT scan didn't show anything unusual. You have a pretty deep laceration on your scalp, but it should heal well enough. You're very lucky, Doctor Jackson."

"What happened?" Daniel asked cautiously, making eye contact with Sam.

"We were hoping you could tell us," she said, smiling but concerned.

He shook his head and felt as if he was going to throw up. He tried to raise his left arm, but for some reason it seemed to be harnessed to his body, his left hand fixed to his chest. Reaching up with his right hand, encumbered only by an IV tube, he warily felt first the patch of closely cropped hair and then the stitches in the left side of his head.

"Do you know where you are?" asked Doctor Warner, gently removing Daniel's inquisitive fingers from the scalp wound.

Keeping his head still, Daniel let his eyes take in the grey concrete walls of the infirmary.

"Yes," he answered slowly. "When is Doctor Fraiser coming to see me?"

"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said, a worried look in his raised eyebrow.

Daniel pressed his lips together, and his forehead wrinkled as he remembered for a second time.

"It's okay, Teal'c," he murmured, keeping his true thoughts to himself. "Sorry to startle you. I just forgot for a moment."

His friends breathed a joint sigh of relief.

"Doctor Jackson, do you remember anything about what happened to you?" asked Doctor Warner.

For a moment, Daniel was inclined to be uncooperative. It wasn't fair. He had asked first.

"I'm sorry, no," he answered. "No, wait...I stopped for coffee on the way into work this morning."

Resting a hand lightly on his right shoulder, Sam said, "That was yesterday morning, Daniel."

"That's impossible," responded the SG-1's chief skeptic.

"Daniel Jackson, you have been unconscious for over thirty-six hours," Teal'c advised him.

"No, that can't be right," Daniel protested.

"Teal'c's right," Sam said. "There was an accident. Your car skidded out of control across the highway. You ended up at the bottom of a ravine head first into a bunch of trees."

"The Jeep?" he asked, his heart sinking because he already knew the answer.

"Summed," Teal'c said, straight-faced.

Glumly, Daniel corrected the Jaffa. "‘Totaled' is the word you're looking for, Teal'c – although your description puts a more positive spin on it."

"You are indeed fortunate, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c concluded.

"Am I?"

He wasn't feeling particularly fortunate. He loved the Jeep. It was the first vehicle he'd bought brand new. Jack had gone with him to pick it out and had ended up co-signing the note because of that pesky, little, hard-to-explain year-long break in Daniel's recent credit history. Jack graciously never reminded him that the car was for all intents and purposes his. When the permanent tags arrived, Daniel had taken great pride in screwing the plates on the back and front bumpers. Since bringing it home he'd kept it washed regularly and turned to Sam with the slightest question. She'd even done his first oil change. He had loved that Jeep...Now it, too, was gone.

"It could have been a lot worse," Sam assured him. "Beside the eight stitches in the side of your head, you've got a concussion, a fractured collarbone, bruised ribs, and a bruised diaphragm."

"And I wasn't even off world," he quipped, a fleeting smile brightening his pale face.

There was a stretch of silence. The fingers of his right hand began to play against one another, but the IV hurt, and he stopped. Then another thought came to him.

"Sam, was anybody else hurt?"

Sam touched his hand. He looked up at her, his blue eyes wide and brimming, his lower lip pressed against the upper.

"No one else was involved," she assured him.

He relaxed noticeably, but the tears fell anyway, as much from relief as from pain. His friends sat down on either side of him, and Sam took hold of his hand.

"You will be well once more, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said softly, handing him a Kleenex.

Daniel sniffed. He took his hand away from Sam's so he could blow his nose but slipped it right back afterwards.

"How long do I have to stay here?" he asked Doctor Warner.

"Oh, I think if there aren't any complications, you'll probably be allowed out of bed tomorrow, and then you'll be released on Sunday. I would like you to remain on base for a few days. That's a pretty nasty gash you've got there. Things could have been much worse. It's a good thing you had your seatbelt buckled, Sir."

"Jack reminded me," Daniel murmured, wishing immediately that he had said nothing.

He tried to scrunch down in the bed to get comfortable for sleeping, but the movement made his left shoulder throb, so he stayed where he was.

"Wait a minute, Daniel," Sam said. "Did you just say Colonel O'Neill reminded you to buckle your seatbelt?"

"Yes, Sam," he answered sleepily. "He said he was an hallucination."

"Daniel–"

"Please, Sam, no more questions now."

"All right, Evil Knievel," she teased him as she leaned down and kissed his cheek. "But don't think you're going to get away without explaining yourself. I'm glad you're still in one piece, no matter who you think was with you. Good night, Daniel. Coming, Teal'c?"

"Major Carter, I think I will remain a while longer."

"Okay, then, I'll see you tomorrow. Just don't keep him up with your repertoire of Jaffa jokes."

Both Daniel and Teal'c smiled briefly at the Major's comment. Then after she was gone, Daniel glanced anxiously at the Jaffa, reddening slightly.

"I have to use the bathroom," he said quietly.

"Doctor Warner said–"

"I'm not using a bedpan, Teal'c," Daniel answered sourly.

"Daniel–"

"Jack would help me," Daniel snapped, pushing back the covers.

"I am not Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c replied, sounding like a stern father dealing with a petulant child.

When Daniel persisted in getting up, Teal'c rose from his seat and walked around the bed. Daniel reached up and unhooked the IV bag from the pole and took a few steps forward. He closed his eyes against the dizziness and nausea and a pain he hadn't expected. He opened them again, and the floor was much nearer, only the Jaffa's massive arms preventing it from coming any closer. His eyes followed a thick tube that ran from beneath his hospital gown to a plastic container hanging at the end of the bed, and he finally surrendered to the inevitable.

"Daniel Jackson, I believe Doctor Warner may know best," Teal'c suggested as he helped the archaeologist back into bed.

"I doubt that," Daniel snarled miserably. "But it doesn't negate the fact that I still have to go."

"Shall I help you?" Teal'c offered.

The color that rose from Daniel's neck to his bruised scalp spoke more than words ever could. As much as he cared for the Jaffa, Daniel preferred privacy for certain things. It was enough that he had had to submit to Jack's close attention after his rescue in Nicaragua when he was too sick to do anything for himself. He would never diminish this great warrior by allowing him to minister to his most private needs.

"You can get the nurse,' Daniel muttered.

"Are you certain?" Teal'c asked.

"Yes, Teal'c. I'm certain."

The nurse arrived, almost too late, and with a practiced snap of her wrist pulled the curtain closed, shutting Daniel off from the outside world.

5.
The smell of coffee brewing drew Elizabeth Weir toward the office she was looking for on Level 19. When she reached the open doorway of L-7, her taste buds were excited, even though it was well past the time she should consume any caffeine.

She was about to speak, but seeing Daniel intently reading his computer screen, she decided to wait until he looked up so he wouldn't be startled.

After reading the screen, he began to type diligently with his right hand, his left bound in what he called "Doctor Warner's Torture Device." The strap went around his upper abdomen and left bicep, then around his bent elbow and over his shoulder, pressing his hand against the upper right-hand side of his chest as if he were saluting the flag – all this to keep his broken collarbone in place. Except that the strap made him sweat and itch, it was better than the alternative, which looked like a truss.

"You can take the tray away," he murmured softly without looking up.

"Actually, I was hoping you'd offer me a cup of coffee."

Despite Doctor Weir's best effort, Daniel jumped.

"I'm-I'm sorry," he stammered, nodding politely at her. "I thought you were an airman here to pick up the dinner tray."

Doctor Weir lifted the chrome lid and saw the untouched remains of baked chicken, broccoli, and stuffed baked potato on the plate. A side dish of salad and another of cole slaw sat exposed to the air. An unopened packet of decaffeinated coffee sat inside a blue SGC mug. A large chocolate chip cookie had a bite taken out of it.

She picked up the cookie.

"Thought you solved the mouse problem," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

"What?" Daniel asked, still looking at his computer monitor. He turned his head slowly to see what she was talking about and said, "Oh. Good one," before returning to his work. "Coffee mugs are in the cabinet near the door. Help yourself."

Accepting the invitation, Doctor Weir poured herself a cup of coffee.

"Oh, my God," she gasped, swallowing a mouthful. "This is wonderful."

"Honduran," Daniel explained, making a correction at the keyboard.

"Souvenir?" she asked.

Daniel looked at her again. She smiled.

"I'm sorry. Was that in bad taste?"

Finally, his demeanor lightened a little, and he smiled back at her wearily.

"No, no, it's fine," he assured her. "Can I do something for you, Doctor Weir?"

"What happened to ‘Liz'?" she asked.

He dropped his head, a little embarrassed. He had started out calling her by her nickname at her invitation, but he had stopped right after SG-1 came back from Antarctica. Since then, he didn't see much point in getting to know his boss any better. They'd be parting company in a few months. Best to keep their relationship on completely professional terms.

Dodging the question, he looked at his watch, now worn awkwardly on his right wrist.

"What are you doing here at this hour?" he asked. "And on a Sunday evening?"

"I heard you were discharged this afternoon," Doctor Weir told him, realizing she wasn't going to get an answer to her question. "Didn't Doctor Warner tell you to rest?"

"I really have a lot of work to do," Daniel answered, returning his attention to his computer and hoping he didn't sound if he were asking her to leave, even though he really was.

"Daniel–"

"Doctor Weir," he said as kindly as he could, "I'm sorry, but I was in the infirmary for four days. I was just released" – he looked at his watch again "– five hours ago, and I'm trying my best to get caught up."

"I'll bet you haven't lain down since you got out, much less eaten."

"Look, Doctor Weir, I appreciate your concern –"

"Daniel."

"–but with all due respect, you're my boss–"

"And as your boss," Doctor Weir said, not allowing him to finish what he intended to say, "I'm inclined to put you on medical leave, Doctor Jackson."

"You can't do that," he protested.

Doctor Weir smiled kindly. "Oh, I think you'll find I can. In fact, I just have. As of this moment, this office is off limits, do you understand? And I'm giving you two choices – you can go back to the guest quarters and go to bed –"

"But it's only eight-thirty," Daniel complained, his face and tone so innocent and sincere that Doctor Weir almost laughed out loud.

"–or you can come to the commissary with me and get something to eat."

Daniel frowned. "It's too late to eat."

"Doctor Jackson."

Daniel's frown deepened, but he stood up slowly and grabbed his blue jacket from the back of his chair. They were already out the door when he turned on his heel and called over his shoulder that he'd be right back. When he returned, he balanced the tray of uneaten food in his right hand.

"You know," Doctor Weir said as they entered the elevator on Level 19 and she pressed the button for 22, "it's really a shame to let all that food go to waste."

"Jack used to tell me that all the time," Daniel said.

He looked down quickly, his forehead furrowing, his lips dry. Why had he said that out loud?

The doors opened, and Doctor Weir stepped out first. Daniel stood there gnawing his bottom lip. Realizing that he wasn't following, she turned around abruptly and found the tray being thrust into her hands. He mumbled something inaudible as he pressed 25. He didn't hear what she said as the doors closed. When the elevator opened at Level 25, he hurried to the VIP quarters assigned to him, hoping he wouldn't see anyone else he knew.

He closed the door quietly. His head was really beginning to hurt. He looked around to get his bearings. Against the wall where the desk should be was a recliner. That answered one question. He had wondered how he was going to get comfortable in bed with the strap supporting his broken clavicle. Now he wondered how he was going to get washed and changed without help. Typical modern medical thinking: Cut somebody loose and leave them to their own devices.

Shrugging off his blue jacket, he looked around for the desk. If he couldn't get undressed, maybe he'd go online for awhile. Nope, no chance of that. His laptop was disconnected, the power pack and phone cord coiled neatly on top of it. Even if there were a phone jack on that side of the room, he was in no shape to go crawling around on the floor under the desk to plug everything in.

On the bed lay a pair of blue cotton pajamas. Carefully, he tried to get his t-shirt over his head. Ten minutes and a pulled back muscle later, he gave up and decided to leave the t-shirt on for the night. The boots were the next problem, but he managed those with less difficulty than he had the shirt, although leaning over caused his head to throb something fierce and made him feel dizzy and sick. When he sat up, he could feel blood trickling down the side of his head. He held a wad of Kleenex against it until it stopped. He knew enough to know it was to be expected. Scalp wounds bled a lot, and it was a pretty nasty gash.

He pulled a vial of Vicodin from his pants pocket and set it on the table next to the recliner before he unbuckled his belt and let his trousers fall to the floor. Padding into the bathroom in his socks, he brushed his teeth and washed his face, so he wouldn't feel like he'd been camping out on another planet for days. The only way he'd be able to take a shower in the morning was if he went back to the infirmary and asked for help, and that would mean somehow reversing the awkward process he'd just put himself through. And how would he ever get his boots laced?

He set a cup of water down on the table next to his glasses and struggled with the child-proof cap the pharmacy insisted on putting on every prescription bottle, even though there were no children in the SGC. They'd taken care of Anubis in less than five minutes, yet in the same amount of time he still hadn't defeated the cap. In frustration he went off in search of his trusted Tylenol. He was in pain from his head to his toes, and all he wanted was some relief. After swallowing two of the yellow-and-red coated pills, he adjusted the strap under his t-shirt and walked to the door to turn out the lights. He found his way to the bed and grabbed the spread. He located the recliner by stubbing his toe on it in the darkness.

Wrapping himself in the bedspread as best he could with one hand, he sat down, pushed the recliner back, and tried to get comfortable. For a few moments he lay quietly, hoping against hope to shut out the events of the past few days. Gradually, other thoughts – the ones that usually accompanied him each night – took over: the sound of gunfire, death gliders swooping down from the brilliant skies, glowing eyes, the face of an incredibly beautiful dark-haired woman, a doctor, his best friend, a lifetime of loss. His heart skipped a beat. His throat tightened. And when he could bear the ache no more, he surrendered and cried himself to sleep.

6.
Exhausted, Daniel sat down on a bench by the side of the road. He had been searching for the others for hours. This place was like a maze. Sometimes the path seemed clear, wide open; but every time he thought he'd found a way out, he encountered yet another turn. At each turn the Stargate came into view, still he was no nearer to reaching it than he was to finding his friends. He could hear their voices clearly. Where could they be? It was as if they were deliberately hiding from him. He saw lots of people he didn't want to see, like Charlie Dawson who used to beat him up regularly at the children's home, and kind strangers who pointed him in directions that led nowhere.

The sky was growing dark, the air chilly and damp. It would begin to rain any minute. There was no shelter that Daniel could see.

"Jack!" he shouted once more, hoping for an answer. "Sam! Teal'c!"

The only reply was a loud clap of thunder.

"Okay, what's your situation?" he asked himself, his voice not very reassuring as he tried to steady his nerves with Jack's oft-repeated tactical assessment. "You're lost, you idiot. So what do you need? You need to find Jack, Sam, and Teal'c."

He rested his right elbow on his knee and tucked his hand under his chin to think, just as the wind picked up, carrying on its back an icy drizzle. He tucked his left arm close to his body in an effort to keep warm. A flash of lightning made him jump. The thunder that followed reminded him of the roar of an ion cannon.

Then through the black clouds he saw the sleek, curved wings of half a dozen Goa'uld death gliders.

In self-preservation, Daniel crawled under the bench and huddled into a tight ball on his right side. If he squeezed himself up small enough, the Jaffa would not see him. If he squeezed himself up small enough, he could disappear like the rest of SG-1.

* * *

"Daniel Jackson, wake up."

Daniel's eyes opened quickly to the warmth of a large hand touching his sweaty brow.

"Teal'c, where have you been?" he demanded, gasping for breath in the smoke from the death gliders' blasts. "I've been looking all over for you. Have you seen Jack or Sam?"

The Jaffa's broad face showed worry.

"I apologize for entering your quarters without permission, Daniel," he said, "but when you did not respond, I became concerned."

Still caught up in his nightmare, Daniel gazed around the room as if he'd never seen it before.

"Jack and Sam?" he asked again.

"You were dreaming," Teal'c assured him.

Craving sleep but afraid to close his eyes again, Daniel stared.

"Jack?" he repeated.

"There has been no news," Teal'c replied.

Daniel made an effort to stretch his taut body out of the knot it was in. His arms were stiff, and his legs ached and didn't seem to want to straighten out.

"Permit me to help you," the Jaffa offered.

Without waiting for his friend's consent, he put his hand under Daniel's right shoulder and assisted him in turning onto his back in the recliner. Dazed, Daniel cried out. The pain in his broken shoulder shook him from his lethargy, and he struggled to sit up. A week after the accident, he was still miserable. Once he had resigned himself to being on medical leave, he seemed to sleep almost constantly with little restoration to his strength.

He put his right arm around Teal'c's neck and allowed the Jaffa to get him out of the recliner. Someone had had the forethought to put a phone on the table. After several tries on Monday morning to get onto his feet, he reluctantly admitted defeat and called for help; and Teal'c had come to the rescue. Since then he had assisted Daniel with whatever the archaeologist could not manage for himself.

"Thank you, Teal'c," Daniel said once he was upright, sincerely.

It had taken a lot for Daniel to ask for assistance. He hated appearing fragile or dependent on others; but for the moment he was, and there was nothing to be done about it. Although he and Teal'c had known each other for years, he was always surprised by Teal'c's gentleness. There was little the large, often silent man would not do for him, and he respected the boundaries Daniel set on the care he was willing to receive. The Jaffa was well aware that their friendship could never replace the one that Daniel missed so keenly.

"When you are dressed," Teal'c said when Daniel entered the bathroom, "we are to meet Major Carter in the commissary for breakfast."

"Why?" Daniel asked with a mouth full of toothpaste.

"She has obtained permission from Doctor Warner to take you into town for a few hours."

"She has?"

"Yes, there is something you apparently must see."

"There is?"

With a slightly annoyed glint in his eye, Teal'c glanced at Daniel who had reached for the shaving cream after washing his face. Taking the can from him, he sprayed the foam into Daniel's hand and withdrew discreetly while Daniel scraped a razor over his thick nightly growth of beard. In the middle of the task, Daniel put the razor down and grabbed onto the side of the small sink. The dizziness lasted only a moment, but it startled him.

"You know, maybe I should just stay around the base," he suggested, breathing a little faster.

"Doctor Warner thought some fresh air and new surroundings might serve you well, Daniel Jackson."

"Doctor Warner's an ass," Daniel snarled.

"You do not care for Doctor Warner."

"It's not his fault. It's just –"

He didn't finish what he started to say. Teal'c knew how he felt. There wasn't any point in going over it again.

Besides, he was freezing standing here in just his underwear. He had figured out a way to get a t-shirt on or off single-handedly, and slip-on shoes had solved the problem of having to lace up his boots. Doctor Warner's Torture Device and certain aspects of personal hygiene, however, required a second pair of hands. Daniel was generally meticulous about his appearance and had grown a little demanding because he didn't feel well. Teal'c took it all in stride and attended to his friend's needs with the same sense of duty with which he had once served Apophis but with about as much patience and good grace as he would have shown his son Ry'ac.

"That hurts," Daniel complained when Teal'c washed his back just a little too hard.

"Yes, my lord," Teal'c answered with a purposeful bow.

Daniel got the point and shut up, embarrassed by his own moodiness and bad temper. Teal'c proceeded as before, even hummed a little to relieve some of the tension. Jack would have scrubbed even harder. For weeks following his rescue from Rafael, while Daniel had been unable to stand on his own two feet, Jack had done things for him that no friend should be asked to do. Daniel was determined he would not become that dependent on anyone else ever again. Yet because of his injuries from the accident, it was necessary that Teal'c wash his legs and feet. Doctor Warner's assessment for the initial phase of his recovery as two more weeks had better be right. He mentally counted the days until his liberation.

After half an hour of submission to a certain degree of discomfort, Daniel, dressed in street clothes as was Teal'c, was finally ready to show himself to the world or at least to any SGC personnel who might be in the commissary. There he faced a third morning of public humiliation when Miss Wanda, the well-respected and somewhat feared civil servant who managed the kitchen staff of both civilians and airmen, scolded him loudly for allowing himself to get so thin. Despite his request for French toast and sausage, she insisted that he have half a grapefruit and a bowl of oatmeal.

"You need something to put a little color in your cheeks, Doctor Jackson," she chided.

"You'd never say that to Teal'c," Daniel answered defensively.

The airman serving from the hot trays this morning put two sausages on a plate, his spatula hovering over the French toast.

"Don't you dare give him that French toast, Mister," Miss Wanda said firmly. To Daniel, she said, "And I don't need to tell Mister Teal'c anything, young man. He was born with color in his cheeks. You weren't so fortunate. Besides, does he look like he ever missed a meal?"

Teal'c's right eyebrow rose questioningly.

"And he don't need mending right now like you do. What you need, Doctor Jackson, is someone to look after you permanently. You need yourself a woman."

Thoroughly mortified, Daniel nonetheless stood his ground with Miss Wanda against this intrusion into his all-too-public private life. The battle over the French toast was already lost.

"Are you flirting with me?" he asked with a very tired smile, knowing he was treading dangerously close to a line he would never consider crossing normally.

"What?" asked Miss Wanda in feigned disgust at the very idea. "You're too skinny for me, Doctor Jackson. I want a man with some meat on his bones like Mister Teal'c here. He's a man who knows how to eat."

It was Sam who restored some order to the mild chaos holding up the line of hungry people. She'd eaten her own breakfast while waiting for Daniel and Teal'c to show up; and now she took Daniel's tray from him and the plate of sausage from the confused airman and led the way back to the table she'd been holding for them. As she had on the two previous mornings, she started to cut Daniel's grapefruit into sections to make life a little easier for him. When she started in on his beloved sausages, he decisively relieved her of his knife and fork and clumsily managed to cut them up himself. It took him twice as long as it should have; but when at last he triumphantly lifted a piece to his mouth, there was a hum of approval throughout the cafeteria.

"Next you'll be spoonfeeding me the damned oatmeal," he muttered as he chewed.

There was a strong message behind his sarcasm.

"Okay," Sam said, acknowledging that he was in control of the situation. "I get the point."

"You look nice, by the way," Daniel commented. "You have a date with Pete?

"No," she said with a blush and a smile, her hands going to the floral top that matched her skirt. "Actually, we have a date. All of us."

"We do."

Daniel poked at the grapefruit a couple of times before squirting himself in the eye. When he finally took a bite, it was too sour. Without a word, Teal'c pushed the sugar dispenser across the table with his knife.

"Thank you, Teal'c," Daniel said with a conspiratorial nod.

He could feel Miss Wanda's eyes boring into him. She hated when people put sugar on their grapefruit. She was about to swoop down from behind her counter to put a stop to his nonsense, but the damage was already done. The grapefruit was now palatable, and Daniel consumed it all, smoothing back any ruffled feathers that might be in danger of flying behind the counter. He ate all of his oatmeal as well and both sausages and the glass of milk Teal'c had put on his tray. He hadn't realized how hungry he was. In fact, he was still hungry. As if she could read his mind, Miss Wanda sailed over to SG-1's table with a plate of French toast liberally smothered with butter and maple syrup.

He looked up at her with a grateful smile that Miss Wanda couldn't resist. She hugged Daniel to her large bosom and kissed the top of his head.

"I'm praying for you, Doctor Jackson," she said, the tone in her voice implying that God didn't have much choice but to listen to her supplications on his behalf.

"Thank you," Daniel said, his smile deepening.

"You gotta get well, honey," Miss Wanda said, tilting his chin upward. "Colonel Jack's gonna need you to be strong and healthy when he comes back. We're all gonna need you that way when that Stargate opens again."

Daniel lowered his fork when she mentioned Jack's name.

"Keep praying, Miss Wanda," Daniel answered with a sigh.

Letting him go reluctantly – Daniel had always been a favorite of hers – Miss Wanda laughed loudly.

"Child, if I ever stop praying," she said defiantly, "it'll be because Judgment Day has arrived at last, and there won't be no need for praying because we'll all be too busy singing praises to the Lord. Now finish your breakfast and stop wasting my time. I got work to do."

When Miss Wanda had waddled back to her station, Sam said, "So...has Teal'c told you what we've got planned?"

Trying to decide whether to finish his French toast, Daniel shook his head.

"There was an article in yesterday's paper about a small museum in Colorado Springs that's mounted an exhibit of Egyptian artifacts never shown to the public before."

His eyes widened ever so slightly, his interest piqued.

"Really?" he asked.

"So..." Sam said enticingly.

"So?"

"We're going."

Daniel thought about how tired he was just from getting dressed and eating breakfast.

"We are?"

"Actually it was Liz's idea," Sam admitted. "She saw it in the paper and phoned me last night to suggest that we go."

"We?"

He sensed there was more to "we" than the three of them.

"That is," said Doctor Weir who appeared at their table as if by magic, "if it's acceptable for your boss to accompany you." She wore a tailored pink linen suit with blue lapels on the fitted jacket and a very short pleated skirt. "I have a ten o'clock meeting; but I should be finished by eleven. If we leave then, we'll be able to squeeze in a quick lunch at Nicole's in town beforehand."

"Nicole's?" Daniel said, with sudden interest. Nicole's was the poshest French restaurant in Colorado Springs. It was impossible to get a reservation for coffee, much less for lunch. "You can get us in at Nicole's?"

"Of course," she smiled. "I just asked the President's secretary to make a reservation for noon. What's the point of knowing people in high places if you can't take advantage of it once in awhile. Will that give us enough time for the museum this afternoon, Sam?"

"I'm sure it will, Ma'am."

"Then there will be a car waiting at the surface at eleven. You know, I'm looking forward to seeing some sunshine."

"It was raining when I came in this morning," Sam said with a wry look.

"Then it will be good to see something," Doctor Weir answered enthusiastically.

7.
The waiter struck a somewhat superior pose and did what waiters are supposed to do: wait. They'd had to wait long enough to be seated at Nicole's that Doctor Weir had commandeered menus so they could plan ahead what they each wanted. Having already ordered for the ladies – Doctor Weir was having a lamb's lettuce salad, smoked swordfish, and champagne; Sam a salad, crayfish tails au gratin, and an array of exotic fruits – Daniel now patiently explained the menu to Teal'c; but despite reaching deep within his diplomatic reserve in an attempt to dissuade him, it was obvious that the Jaffa's mind was made up.

"Trust me, Teal'c," Daniel pleaded wearily, "get the rabbit in aspic."

"But I like Fava beans, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c insisted.

Daniel's right hand slid down the side of his face as he let out a sigh. Glancing with defeat at Doctor Weir and Sam, Daniel shrugged an apology and with his most charming smile said to the long-suffering waiter, "Et pour mon ami ici, le cassoulet bouchard et papillote de fruit sur le grill."

"Très bien, Monsieur. Et son choix de vin, s'ils vous plaît?"

"Pas de vin pour lui, merci," Daniel replied, explaining that Teal'c would have no wine.

"Et pour Monsieur?"

"Moi, je prendrai les pleurottes sautées à la provençale, magret de canard grillé, un plateau de gruyere, et pour dessert un moelleux au chocolat."

"Est-ce que je peux recommander notre Bergerac rouge, Monsieur? Il est magnifique."

"Cela semble splendide," Daniel replied, handing over his menu. "Merci beaucoup."

The others looked at him in amazement.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"Nine months ago you couldn't remember your name," Sam said with a amazed look on her face, "and you just ordered lunch for all of us in French."

"Flawless French," added Doctor Weir in admiration. Daniel's French was far better than hers.

Clearly embarrassed, Daniel asked, "And what's your point?"

"I'm just saying," Sam replied.

"I could have ordered in Ancient," Daniel snapped ill-naturedly, "but I don't think the waiter would have understood."

"Head hurting a little?" asked Doctor Weir gently.

"Does it show?" Daniel responded coyly.

His head had begun hurting the moment he got in the elevator at the SGC. He was surprised how tired he was already.

"You know, the exhibit will be on for a few more weeks," Doctor Weir ventured. "We don't have to go this afternoon."

Daniel tilted his head to tell Doctor Weir she had made an unreasonable statement.

"Of course, we'll go," Daniel told her. Then he smiled at her. "It'll be fun."

Sam and Teal'c exchanged glances.

"Colonel O'Neill won't know what he's missing," Sam interjected.

There was a moment of silence among the four of them, ending perfectly when the wine was presented. When their glasses were full, Daniel raised his in a toast.

"Aux amis absents," he said softly. "To absent friends."

"Indeed," agreed Teal'c picking up his glass of water as the others lifted their wine.

"That was nice, Daniel," Sam said, smiling at him.

"You know, I can't imagine Jack eating here," Daniel said lightly. "I think the closest he's ever been to a French restaurant is ‘Jacques in the Box'."

The women laughed. The joke was lost on Teal'c, but he smiled anyway. It was good to hear Daniel say something – anything – about Jack O'Neill. It had been a long time since he had mentioned the Colonel so freely.

"What do you suppose he would have ordered?" asked Sam.

"Something he knew nothing about," Daniel pontificated, slowly sipping his wine with extreme pleasure. It was the first glass of good wine he'd had since he'd been in Europe years ago. The wine he could afford now was decent enough, but nothing like this. "Then he'd complain all through the meal that it wasn't what he thought it was and try to pass it off on the rest of us. And afterwards he'd want to wash it down with a beer."

He smiled at Sam a little wistfully. She smiled back encouragingly to keep him talking.

"Try to picture him at the museum," she said with a laugh.

"He'd be bored to...as usual," Daniel replied pensively. "He has the attention span of a gnat. He prefers things that move and have flashing lights."

"O'Neill does not always appear to appreciate the finer things in life," Teal'c said in his commanding officer's defense, "but he is a man of integrity."

"You'll get no argument from me, Teal'c," Daniel replied.

Doctor Weir chimed in. "He seemed to like my sense of humor."

"I believe, Doctor Weir, that Colonel O'Neill said he saw promise in you," Teal'c replied with a polite bow.

"Ouch. Guess I just got put in my place," she said under her breath. Then she caught the twinkle in the Jaffa's eye and smiled at his subtly.

They reminisced about Jack while they waited for their food to arrive. It wasn't until they were halfway through the first course that Sam realized Daniel had grown very quiet and wasn't eating much.

"Janet would have liked this place," she said, hoping to draw him back into the conversation. "Don't you think so, Daniel?"

"What? Sorry."

"Janet." Sam chewed a mouthful of salad. "She would have liked it here."

"I could never have afforded it," he said absently, pushing the mushrooms around on his plate.

"What are you talking about, Daniel?" Sam asked, a little perplexed.

"You said Sha're would have liked it here," he answered, "and I said, I couldn't afford to bring her."

"I said Janet, Daniel."

"What?"

"I said Janet. You just said Sha're."

"No, I didn't," Daniel replied, his face going red.

Things obviously weren't going well. He rarely talked about Sha're. He didn't remember saying her name anymore than he remembered hearing Sam say Janet's.

"Maybe we should skip the museum," Sam suggested.

"No, no, no, no, no," Daniel answered quickly, sweetly. "Please. I want to go."

"Maybe you shouldn't have any more wine until you've eaten something," Doctor Weir hinted, looking at his barely touched plate.

"Maybe you're right," Daniel conceded, looking at his nearly empty glass, happy to blame his slight confusion on the wine.

With a sense of foreboding, he ate a few mouthfuls of pleurottes. When the plate of grilled duck was put in front of him, he realized he was no longer hungry and passed it discreetly to Teal'c who made quick work of it. He picked at his chocolate cake, sighing occasionally at it before taking a mouthful. Despite the chatter around him – Sam and Doctor Weir seemed to have taken to one another over the past few weeks, and the Jaffa was obviously enjoying himself – Daniel felt like the odd man out. Maybe they were right. Maybe they should skip the exhibit and just go back to the SGC. He'd like to lie down. He was very tired. He wasn't sure he could do a lot of walking, and his headache was getting worse.

But they were eager to do something nice for him. It would be hard to disappoint them, and he did want to go.

When the check was presented to him, he could feel his eyes rolling to the back of his head. Before he had his wallet out, however, Doctor Weir quietly opened her purse and took out a slip of paper that she tucked into the leather folder. On the exposed portion was the seal of the President of the United States. The waiter bowed graciously and disappeared.

"What was that?" Daniel asked.

"A Presidential thank you," Doctor Weir explained to the three friends as she picked up her purse. "Shall we go?"

* * *

"This is ridiculous," Daniel protested in a sleepy sing-song voice as Teal'c opened up the wheelchair that had been hidden in the trunk of the car. "I can walk."

It had been agreed beforehand not to mention Doctor Warner's insistence that Daniel's activities today be kept to a minimum. A trip this soon after the accident might be courting trouble – Doctor Warner was nothing if not cautious. In fact, it was he who insisted that Teal'c go along just in case. And if anything unforeseen should happen, they were to call the infirmary immediately.

"Daniel, the accident was only a week ago," Sam reminded him needlessly. "And there's a lot of walking in a museum."

Reluctantly, he lowered himself into the wheelchair.

"You said it's a small museum, Sam," he snarled.

Then he glared at the top of Teal'c's bald head while the Jaffa adjusted the leg rests.

"You fell asleep as soon as the car pulled away from the restaurant," Doctor Weir observed, hoping to defuse the situation. Her next comment didn't help. "Do you know you snore? Quite loudly, as a matter of fact."

Sam and Teal'c tried not to laugh. Daniel hated being told about his snoring. Doctor Weir had never camped off-world overnight with the man.

"I broke my nose in high school," he answered defensively, adding with a certain smugness, "You should have seen the other guy."

Teal'c looked deep into Daniel's eyes.

"He was doubled over," Daniel insisted, looking back threateningly.

"No doubt with laughter, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c replied with a straight face.

"Don't get mad," Jack always used to say. "Get even."

Red-faced, Daniel leaned back in the wheelchair, becoming as much dead weight as his slight build would allow. He made a face at the pain the movement caused to his collarbone.

"Daniel Jackson," the Jaffa warned, "with just one hand at your disposal, you would be able to go only in circles were I to leave you here on the street."

With a dignified wave of her hand, Doctor Weir directed the quibbling men to the handicapped ramp. As she and Sam walked up the steps, she asked softly, "I thought they were friends."

"You should see them when they're not on speaking terms," Sam answered.

"Happen a lot, does it?" asked Doctor Weir.

"Fortunately, no," replied Sam. "In fact, Lizzie, I'm not sure who would die for the other first. Their friendship is...Well, it's complicated."

"Many friendships are," Doctor Weir said wisely, sensing that now was not the time to probe deeper.
Doctor Weir paid their admission, then she and Sam took the stairs to the second floor while Daniel and Teal'c wedged themselves into the small elevator. They were still sparring with one another when they met the women at the entrance to the exhibit room. Sam and Doctor Weir just shook their heads.

Daniel stopped sniping at Teal'c long enough to read the sign at the exhibit entrance.

The long-dead Pharaoh's name slipped from his lips easily. He hadn't seen it in years. In college the king had been mentioned only once in passing and only in conjunction with his brothers Sorenhotep and Sobekhotep. But he was intimately acquainted with this Pharaoh.

They entered the exhibit, and Daniel's back stiffened, his face stony. In the subdued lighting of the hall, no one noticed. Sam and Doctor Weir wandered off to admire the intricate inlay work of lapis lazuli and rose quartz on a display of beautiful gold jewelry. Teal'c wheeled the chair through the room and asked an occasional question that Daniel answered didactically but without his usual enthusiasm.

Among the artifacts were textile tools and cooking utensils, a few rare farming implements – the remnants of everyday life in ancient Egypt that reminded him of the short and happy time he'd spent on Abydos. His father-in-law Kasuf had taught him to use a cradle for reaping wheat and how to thresh it with a flail. His hands had become so blistered that spring when he helped bring in the crops that he couldn't hold his pen to write in his journal for a over a week. Sha're had rubbed the blisters with something she refused to identify – he already knew what some of the Abydonian women used as a contraceptive, and he didn't care to know any more about what was on his hands – and laughed lovingly at her husband's softness. He had sat by her side while she ground the wheat he had helped to harvest and later at the feast of thanksgiving shared the bread she made from it with Kasuf and his brother-in-law Skaara with a full heart. For the first time in his life he had a home, a family, willing students, a purpose.

Much of that purpose deserted him following Sha're's capture; but a different purpose quickly supplanted it – a purpose that, with the recent death of Janet Fraiser, only burned brighter within him.

Daniel gazed at the callous on his trigger finger, then looked longingly at the illustration behind a set of grinding stones. The young woman in simple Egyptian clothing, her sleeves pushed up over her shoulders to reveal long, lithe arms, worked assiduously at grinding. She gazed at him and smiled, too busy to stop, too pleased to see him not to welcome him into her world.

"Where have you been, my husband?" Sha're asked.

Daniel jumped. Twisting in the wheelchair, he reached back with his right hand and tapped the Jaffa's arm, unable to take his eyes from Sha're's face.

"Whoa, Teal'c, did you see that?"

"I saw nothing, Daniel Jackson."

Daniel sank back in the chair, slipping into silence as he stared once more at an artist's rendition of an ancient Egyptian woman bent over a pair of grinding stones.

They moved on to the next display. A plethora of personal items – a comb, a cosmetics case, a kohl applicator, a scent bottle – met his glance. All intimate possessions that could have belonged to an Egyptian of either gender.

The musky smell of Abydonian perfume filled the exhibit room. Daniel tried to stifle a sneeze knowing how much it was going to hurt his shoulder, but he couldn't stop it. He closed his eyes to the pain and felt a hand on his cheek.

"Husband," Sha're whispered.

He opened his eyes and saw her dressed as she had been at their wedding. Her eyes were lined with the heavy makeup of the desert people, her lips reddened with ochre-dyed beeswax to entice him. There was no need. He loved her without makeup, loved her when she wore her plain, everyday robes. He loved her when she sweated over the yuffeta flour from which she made their bread, loved her when she lay naked in his arms, allowing him to explore the contours of her body by lamplight, even better by moonlight. He loved to see her face when he pleased her, when she lay asleep beside him afterward.

"Oh, God," Daniel murmured, seeing his own eyes ablaze in a polished bronze mirror in the cabinet.

Teal'c gave no indication that he heard. He pushed the wheelchair away from the display; and the image of Sha're faded gradually from Daniel's mind. The yearning that wracked his body took a little longer to dissipate. As they continued past the various displays, he stopped answering Teal'c's questions.

Concerned by Daniel's lapse into silence, Teal'c watched his friend carefully. Few things in this world or any other could keep Daniel from talking.

"Daniel Jackson?"

When he received no response, Teal'c put a hand on Daniel's right shoulder.

"Wha-at?"

"Do you feel quite yourself, Daniel?" he asked.

"Yes, Teal'c. I'm-I'm fine."

The answer came quickly enough to tell Teal'c that it was an automatic reaction, but there was no chance to investigate further. Doctor Weir had found something she thought would interest the Jaffa.

Teal'c bent and locked the brake on the right wheel.

"I will return momentarily, Daniel Jackson," he promised.

When Daniel realized that he was alone, he reached down and pushed the footrests of the wheelchair out of his way so he could stand up and get a closer look at the figure in the next display case. The piece of statuary was illuminated softly from above, a family group, father, mother, and child.

The placard on a plexiglas stand beneath the statue read:

He remembered Jake, a large man with beer on his breath and the smell of marijuana on his clothes. After his parents died and he had entered New York City child welfare system, Daniel never heard of Jake again. So he'd became an archaeologist.

"Wonder how he died," Daniel murmured out loud.

At the back of the case hung an enlarged color photograph of a man and woman on the beach. Behind them was a sign for Steel Pier and the Famous Diving Horse. Both people wore glasses, and in the woman's arms a small, tow-haired boy, twisted forward and pointed at the photographer. The sign fastened to the photo had the following inscription:

Well, he thought, rocking his head from side to side, they're off on my death by a few years, but...

He looked again at the eerily familiar names on the placard and the faces in the picture, the import of what he was seeing slowly dawning on him. He knew these people. The woman in the photo smiled warmly at him. The tall, shaggy-haired, dour, almost angry-looking man stood slightly apart from her. The child in her arms, a chubby-limbed boy in swimming trunks and a white t-shirt, was clearly giving his mother a difficult time as he struggled to be free of her loving grasp. Daniel looked closer. Like the adults in the picture, the little boy, too, was bespectacled.

"Oh, my God," Daniel gasped as he tried to catch his breath.

The exhibit room suddenly seemed to get smaller and a lot hotter. His heart beating furiously out of sync, Daniel stepped backwards and clutched at the wheelchair for support. Only the right wheel's brake was on firmly, and the chair swung away from his grasp. Daniel's quivering legs went out from under him, and he felt a sharp pain as the side of his head struck the concrete floor.

"Daniel!" he heard Sam shout.

An instant later Doctor Weir was cradling his aching head in her lap while she applied a handkerchief to the laceration that had reopened. Blood from his scalp wound stained the skirt of her pink suit.

All three of them were asking him questions at once. Nearly blind from the pain and unable to speak, Daniel raised his right hand and pointed.

"What is it, Daniel?" Doctor Weir asked.

Sam followed Daniel's trembling finger to the family statue, then to the photograph behind it. She thought she recognized the adults in the picture even before she read the sign. She had seen them die how many times when SG-1 was trapped on P7J-989. She stared at the picture for a moment, then back at Daniel.

"Oh, my God," Sam said in utter surprise. "Those are his parents."

"And the boy?" asked Teal'c.

Finally, Daniel found his voice and stammered, "That-that's m-me."

8.
"Dé jà vu," said Jack O'Neill, standing in the corner with one foot pressed against the wall behind him, arms folded across his chest.

"Go away, Jack," Daniel muttered as Doctor Warner put two more sutures in the archaeologist's scalp.

"I'm sorry, Doctor Jackson," Doctor Warner said while he worked. "Did you say something?"

"No," Daniel said very quietly. "I didn't say anything."

The surgeon stood back to take a look at his handiwork as he returned the unused materials to the tray. He was pleased with what he had done. He was less pleased with the grayish-green hue of his patient's skin.

"Are you still dizzy?" he inquired.

"A little."

Placing a supportive arm under Daniel's shoulders, Doctor Warner helped him lie back on the bed.

"How long do I have to stay this time?" Daniel asked.

"Until the dizziness stops and your blood pressure comes back up. I was uncomfortable about your going out for such a long time. From what Doctor Weir tells me, you had quite a shock.

The vertigo was worse when Daniel closed his eyes. He opened them again and tried to find a spot on the wall to steady himself.

"There are shocks," he replied softly. Then he glanced at Jack in the corner and added, "And there are shocks."

The doctor checked Daniel's pulse again.

"It's still irregular. I think I'd like to keep you here overnight."

Daniel sighed.

"If you can keep some food down, I'll consider letting you go back to the VIP quarters in the morning," Doctor Warner said. "I want to keep an eye on you."

The blue eyes turned toward the doctor. He had begged the man not to give him Demoral, but nobody ever listened. Doctor Fraiser would never have made that mistake.

"I tried to tell him," he said to Jack.

"What's that, Doctor Jackson?" Doctor Warner asked.

"Nothing. I was talking to Ja...myself."

"I'll have a nurse call down to the commissary for some soup and toast."

"Soup and toast," said Jack. "That's exciting."

"Will you shut up?" Daniel hissed.

"Excuse me?" asked Doctor Warner.

Daniel flushed and tried not to look at the surgeon. The Demoral was doing nothing for the pain, and his stomach was in turmoil.

"When can I get up?" he asked quickly.

Doctor Warner's frown of concern was mirrored by Jack.

"Why don't you just stay still for a little while, Doctor Jackson," the doctor suggested. "Your friends can wait until tomorrow to see you."

That was just fine by Daniel. He had all the friends he needed right here in this room.

"Now there's a man who knows his medicine," Jack quipped when Doctor Warner was gone. "Soup and toast. Rest. A real giant of the profession, I say."

"Jack, please."

"What, Daniel? Please what?"

"It's bad enough they brought me back here in an ambulance," Daniel raged, or would have raged if talking didn't make his head hurt so much and he didn't feel as if he were going to throw up again. "I'll be the talk of the SGC when this gets around."

"What do you care?" asked Jack. "People can think what they want."

"You've never had to face down bullies and know that no matter how hard you hit them, they're gonna beat you that much harder. All you can do is show them you're not afraid, even though you've just crapped your pants – and hope they don't knock you on your backside."

"That's colorful, even for you," Jack said. "And haven't I always told you that as long as I'm around, there is nothing and no one you need to be afraid of?"

"But you're not around, Jack," Daniel said. "You're in Antarctica."

As Daniel's face threatened to crumble, Jack warned him, "Don't you even think about it."

Daniel took a deep, painful breath and somehow managed to hold himself together. He'd had a terrible afternoon. He'd ruined his boss's suit, and Teal'c had given him a bollixing he wouldn't soon forget for getting out of the wheelchair. In the ambulance, Sam had held his hand all the way back to the base, but she refused to believe he'd seen Sha're. She hadn't believed him about seeing Jack either. Her suggestion that he might want to schedule an appointment with Doctor Lambert had only pissed him off, and he'd said some pretty unpleasant things to her. Like he'd tell the base psychologist anything.

"Jack, I'm going to close my eyes now and hope I don't slide off the bed because of this dizziness. The next time I open them, I want you to be gone. Go annoy Sam. She'd love to see you."

"Daniel."

"Jack, I said go away."

"Daniel."

It didn't sound like Jack.

Daniel struggled to open his eyes. The effort it took to finally get them open told him that he had fallen asleep. A piece of cold toast with two bites taken from it dangled from his right hand. He ran his tongue cautiously through the inside of his mouth to make sure he had actually swallowed. A bowl of chicken noodle soup sat on the table in front of him. He didn't remember eating anything. He didn't even remember anyone bringing in the tray. Instinctively, he raised his hand to rub his eye and nearly jabbed himself with the toast.

"Let me take that," said Emily Lambert, the base psychologist, relieving him of the bread.

"Thank you," he managed to get out of his desert-dry mouth. He looked around for the water pitcher. Some genius had put it on the left side of the bed. He pointed with his right hand. "Could you, uh–?"

Emily filled a styrofoam cup for him. The water was cold and felt good on his dry tongue.

"Thank you," he said again, still very groggy. "What time is it?"

"Almost eight," she answered.

The infirmary was very quiet.

"Jack?" Daniel said.

"There's no one else here, Daniel," she said, watching him carefully for any other signs of confusion.

"I know," he replied, and he gave her his sweetest smile.

Daniel liked Emily Lambert. She was competent and much nicer to look at than Doctor MacKenzie who had treated him following the kidnapping. He often found himself smiling at her, but he rarely told her anything. As much as Daniel had despised MacKenzie, he and the sinister-looking psychiatrist had established an uneasy rapport. Upon MacKenzie's departure last winter, Daniel had stopped seeing a therapist altogether. It was just too difficult to start over. Only when General Hammond suggested that all of SG-1 participate in grief counseling when Janet died – something he did not insist upon for the other SG teams – had Daniel sought Emily out. Most of their fifty-minute sessions so far had been nearly as silent as a Quaker meeting while he waited for her to show him her stuff, so to speak. He was mistrustful of his feelings, even more mistrustful of letting down his guard, of letting anyone see the real him. If people got to know him, it would only lead to unhappiness.

He started to stretch, forgetting that he was still bound by the clavicular brace. He winced and inhaled sharply as he heard his shoulder crack loudly. He tried to smile through the pain.

"It does that once in awhile," he explained. His eyes slowly focused on the clock. "It's pretty late," he added, wondering where his glasses were. "What brings you here?"

"You, actually," Emily said.

"Me."

"I tried to see you yesterday, but I was told you were unavailable. Teal'c is quite protective of your privacy."

"Teal'c wouldn't let you see me?" He'd have to remember to thank him.

"I was in my office finishing up some dictation when I heard you were brought in by ambulance this afternoon." She smiled. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

He smiled back at her. He really liked Emily. He just wished she wasn't a therapist. No, actually, he liked the fact that she was a therapist. It gave him a reason not to like her.

"Look," she said in her gentle voice, "I know you've had a really long day. I just took a chance–"

"A chance to what?" he asked, still smiling, eyelashes fluttering.

"Daniel."

"If I don't eat this," he said, drawing the bowl of soup closer to him, "then Doctor Warner won't spring me in the morning."

He put a spoonful of soup to his lips. It was cold, greasy, and unappetizing. He put the spoon down with a shaky hand. His forehead wrinkled and his mouth tightened.

"Why don't I ask one of the nurses to put that in the microwave for you?" Emily offered.

"No. Thank you."

For a few minutes an uneasy and very heavy silence hung between them. Daniel wouldn't allow himself to look at her.

"Would you like me to come back," Emily asked.

"No, you don't have to come back," he answered, too honestly.

"Let me put that a different way," Emily said, her easy smile telling him that she was on to him.

In each of their three sessions, she'd quickly seen through his sarcasm and vague and diverting responses, and it made him even more resistant. That's why she was here at this hour, in the infirmary, hoping to catch him off-guard, when he was more likely to answer her questions, when he was vulnerable. Almost visibly, Daniel ducked inside his shell.

"You really have had a rough couple of days, haven't you?" Emily commented. If she left it up to him to start talking, they could be here until the next Ice Age.

"You could say that."

"Wanna talk about it?

"No."

"Daniel."

"You already know what happened."

"Both Teal'c and Major Carter said you've been acting strangely."

"They always say that."

"Major Carter said you saw Colonel O'Neill the morning of your accident."

He made a face with his mouth drawn up tight that told her the topic was closed. She was going to have to try another approach.

"So you fainted this afternoon at the museum," she said.

Daniel's face relaxed. His smile brightened up the evening light in the infirmary.

"I didn't faint," he replied, triumphant in his ability to set the record straight. "I thought Teal'c had put the brakes on the wheelchair. I reached for it, and it moved. I lost my balance and fell. That's all."

"I understand you were quite shaken."

Showing some marrow at last, tired though he was, Daniel raised his voice.

"For crying out loud, Emily, I was nearly killed a week ago. I should never have gotten out of the wheelchair to look at the stupid statue.

I should never have left the base today. It was a stupid, stupid idea."

"Tell me about the statue," Emily suggested.

"Thirteenth Dynasty Egypt, limestone, depicting a family unit," he said very quickly, his voice rising a few notches.

"And you needed to get out of the wheelchair to see it."

"It was a stupid idea," he said again.

"Did something about the statue upset you?"

"A lot of things upset me. Especially being asked what's upset me."

"Oh, come on, Daniel," Emily replied, surprising him with her own irritation. "Do we have to do this every time we talk?"

"Do what?" he asked unhelpfully.

"Dance around what's bothering you."

He shrugged with his right shoulder. "It makes the time go faster."

"You know, you're one of my most difficult patients?" she confided to him.

Daniel's smile made a slight reappearance. He was rather proud of himself.

"Really?"

"Yes," Emily said offhandedly. "The others are confined."

Daniel's back stiffened, even though he tried to make his next comment seem casual.

"Oh, I remember that white room. You know, I still have nightmares about that place."

The source of his deep-seated mistrust of her profession was a matter of record, and his reference to it was the opening Emily had been waiting for. She pounced like a cat on a mouse.

"So you're having nightmares?"

"When I sleep."

"And how are you sleeping?"

"Like the dead."

It was a bad analogy. He regretted saying it immediately.

More softly, now that she had the mouse under her paw, Emily leaned forward, her hands pressed together in a suppliant pose.

"Daniel, I'm not your adversary. If anything, I'm your advocate. But I can't help you if you won't trust me. And we are no further along now than when we first met five weeks ago."

"That's got to tell you something," he responding, wriggling out of the cat's grasp.

"I wish you'd tell me something."

He pressed himself against the pillow, looking for a way past her.

"I don't enjoy these mental gymnastics any more than you do," he confessed.

"Then why don't you just stop?"

He gazed at her wearily, then rubbed his tired face with his right hand. Wall building was never-ending work, but he'd been doing it most of his life and had gotten pretty good at it. Continually checking for cracks was the really exhausting part. If you didn't keep after them, there was no telling who might slip inside. Before you knew it, you couldn't get rid of them no matter how wide a gap you cleared. And the next thing you knew, you didn't want them to leave because for whatever crazy reason, you let yourself care. When you care, they can lay your heart open, bleeding and raw. He just didn't want to care anymore.

"Your doctor also expressed some concern. He said you were talking to someone who wasn't there."

"Where?"

"Here."

"Where exactly?" he said, looking around.

They'd played these word games before. He was good at wasting time.

"Your doctor–"

He put up his right hand, index finger raised to his lips to stop her. "Doctor Warner is not my doctor. Doctor Fraiser is my doctor."

"Doctor Fraiser is dead," Emily felt compelled to remind him.

"Yes, I know," he snapped, a touch of venom in voice. "I was there. I saw it happen."

Once more he looked at the bowl of soup. If he didn't eat something, Doctor Warner wouldn't release him tomorrow. Tomorrow was Thursday. If he wasn't released, he couldn't go the cemetery for the second straight week. He tried another mouthful, but it was awful. He dropped the spoon into the bowl. He could appeal to Emily to get him out. He knew she'd help him, but at what cost? How much of his soul would he have to surrender in order to buy back his freedom?

"And you're worried about Colonel O'Neill."

Speaking even faster, he replied, "Of course, I am. He's my friend. I was there when he stuck his head in that damned thing."

"What did you see at the museum this afternoon that upset you so much?" Emily asked.

God, this was like watching a train wreck. The conversation was hurtling onward, and he had no power to stop it any more than he had been able to stop the Jeep from careening out of control and landing in that ditch.

"You told Major Carter that Colonel O'Neill reminded you to put on your seatbelt," she said. Her cat's paw had worked its way into his shell with an uncanny sense of timing. "Why would you forget to buckle your seatbelt? And why would Colonel O'Neill, who happens to be frozen in Antarctica, appear in your car at just the right moment to remind you to do something you've probably never forgotten since you learned to drive – what? twenty years ago? Don't you think it odd that you visit Doctor Fraiser's grave every week; and when you're in a crisis situation, you see Colonel O'Neill?"

The wall clock finally came into focus. "Will you look at that," he said flippantly. "Your fifty minutes are up."

"The two people who were responsible for your health, safety, and well-being since you joined the SGC are gone," Emily continued in a soft, slow voice, almost as if she were telling a child a bedtime story. "Today you saw a picture of your parents who died tragically before your eyes, and you fell apart. You don't see any parallels?"

"I was never any good at geometry," Daniel answered, swallowing and pressing his lips together firmly.

Emily sensed she was getting closer.

"Daniel, your safety net has been yanked from under you. You were unable to save one of your dearest friends, and she died in your arms. Another friend is in deep, deep trouble, and you don't know how to help him."

"I'd have traded places with either of them," he answered to a question she hadn't even asked. His voice was even higher than before, the words tumbling out of his faster and faster, "I'd have taken that staff blast for Janet if I could, but it all happened too fast. There was nothing I could do. And I told Jack I'd gladly have the knowledge of the Ancients downloaded into my brain. I tried to get to the device first, but he stopped me. I'd have done it, but he wouldn't let me...I'd have done it."

In a sudden frenzy of activity, the fingers of his right hand rubbed against one another. He couldn't look at her, ashamed at having revealed so much of himself. He didn't want to tell her any more. His friends understood. To carry this heavy burden was his fate. Despite his best efforts, despite Oma's best efforts, he had never been able to give it up. That was why he had failed so miserably as an Ascended Being, why he had failed as a human being. The weight of the world was on his shoulders, had broken one of them, and there was no escape.

"No one's blaming you, Daniel," Emily assured him. "No one has ever blamed you."

"I know. But I blame myself."

9.
"Hey," Sam said, poking her head in through Daniel's office door.

"Hey," Daniel repeated, looking up from his computer. "What's up?"

"I'm sick of looking at that Signal Impulse Amplifier," Sam replied making a wry face.

"Come on, Sam," he teased, "you've only been working on it for the last, what? three months?"

"OK, Mr. Fix-it, you want a go at connecting minuscule electrodes with a soldering iron made for an Asgard's hand for eight hours straight ?

"So you're taking a break?"

"I'm going home," she informed him. "It's after five."

Daniel flipped back the cover on his watch to confirm what he'd just been told.

"Oh," he said.

"Hey, Pete's down for the weekend, and we're going to watch the Wormhole X-treme marathon on Sci Fi. Wanna join us?"

With a gentle smile, he replied, "No, thanks, I'd only be a fifth wheel."

"Since when? Come on. Beer and pizza. And Pete likes your company. He says you're the only one who talks to him like he's got any brains."

"Yeah, Pete's pretty smart for a cop," Daniel answered getting up from his chair. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the freshly made pot. "You really like him, don't you, Sam?"

Sam blushed a little, and Daniel's smile deepened.

"Then get out of here and go be with him." He took hold of her hand and squeezed, hoping to convey some advice without words. "I know what I'm talking about. Go, go, go. Looks like I'm going to be here for a few more hours yet. I found a report I was working on just before we went to Kelowna, and it looks like I never finished it. I should probably see if I can't remember what it was I wanted to say."

"Daniel, that was over two years ago."

"Yeah, I know," he said slowly.

"Are you even supposed to be here?" Sam asked. "I thought you were still on medical leave."

"Come on, Sam," Daniel answered impatiently. "How long can I stay in the VIP quarters or walk around the track at the gym. Warner says it's going to be another six weeks before I can even start physical therapy. Do you know how much muscle mass I'll lose in six weeks?"

"Since when were you ever concerned about muscle mass?"

She came into the room and walked behind him where he was sitting at the computer. Something was bugging him. He seemed tense, agitated. In an effort to calm him, her hands went to his back which she rubbed affectionately.

"Daniel?"

"Yes?" he asked, acting as if he hadn't noticed.

"Where's your shoulder strap?" she asked suspiciously.

"What?"

"You heard me. Your shoulder strap. You're not wearing it. Doctor Warner said he wanted you to wear it for at least another two weeks."

"Oh, you mean the Torture Device?" he snapped. "You should be grateful. I was finally able to take a shower."

"Teal'c doesn't know, does he?"

Daniel turned his head, his face serious. "And he's not going to find out either, is he?"

"What are you trying to prove, Daniel?"

"I'm not trying to prove anything," he insisted. He raised his t-shirt so Sam could see his irritated skin on his abdomen.

"Some Gold Bond Powder will take care of that," she said firmly.

About to give up on him, she tapped the back of his shoulder gently.

"Come on, Daniel. Get the sling thing, and let's go."

Daniel yelled "Ow" very loudly. His right hand went to his collarbone as if there was something he could do to stop the pain. "What was that for?"

"Just proving a point," Sam replied as she picked her purse and headed back to the door.

"What point might that be?" Daniel asked, still miserable.

"That even geniuses can be idiots."

When he didn't make a smart comeback, Sam followed his eyes. Daniel was looking past her at the airman behind her.

"Can I help you, airman?" Daniel asked.

The young man carried a package the size of a shoebox and put it down on the counter. It was addressed to Elizabeth A. Weir, PhD, in care of NORAD. The return address belonged to the museum in Colorado Springs.

"Uh, this should go to Doctor Weir's office," Daniel told the airman.

"No, Sir, she asked me to bring it directly to you."

"Why?" Daniel asked slowly, suspiciously.

"I don't know, Sir. She didn't say. Will there be anything else, Sir?"

"No, I don't think so," Daniel said. "Thank you."

"Good night, Sir."

"Good night, airman."

He scratched the side of his head where the stitches were. They were driving him crazy. Doctor Warner promised to remove them on Monday, and Daniel couldn't wait. The wound was still very tender, especially now that he had two more stitches after hitting his head again the other day at the museum.

"What is it?" asked Sam.

"Painful," Daniel said, touching his head gingerly.

"No, I mean in the box."

"I have no idea," he said slowly. "Let's find out."

Daniel took a Swiss army knife from his back pocket and started to slice the heavy packing tape while Sam helpfully held the box steady. Everything he did these days required three hands. How had he ever managed before with just two? When all the tape was cut, she lifted the lid and removed the bubble wrap that protected the contents. Inside were a thirty-year-old Kodak Ektra 110 camera with some unexposed film still inside, a packet of letters held together with a decomposing rubber band, a single old reel-to-reel tape, a man's wallet, and an envelope with the name "Daniel" written in a shaky hand.

"Wonder if the film's any good," Sam said as she looked through the viewfinder of the camera.

The rubber band disintegrated when Daniel picked up the letters. He turned them over and was stunned to see his own careful printing, not a lot different from his writing today.

"I wrote these," he said softly.

He unfolded the first one and let out a small sigh, remembering the time and place it had been written.

"Wow. I was long winded even then," Daniel said with a self-effacing smile.

Sam laughed as she rummaged through the box. "Where did all this stuff come from?"

"The return address is the museum."

He shuffled through the photographs quickly. There were a lot of different people he didn't know, even from the names written on the back in his mother's meticulous writing.

"Wait, who's that?" Sam wanted to know when a seemingly familiar picture came to the top.

Daniel turned the picture so Sam could see the handsome man with shoulder-length hair and thick black-rimmed glasses wearing a t-shirt and a sports coat.

"That's your dad, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I thought I remembered him."

"Yeah, you said that a few days ago at the museum. You sort of met my folks once, didn't you?"

"It was an odd way to be introduced."

"You know the one thing I remember my father telling me?"

"What?"

"Don't touch anything. Jack reminds me a lot of my dad."

Daniel laughed gently, then fell silent as he picked up the single reel-to-reel tape. There was a note taped to it in fading flair pen:

Jake, please make sure this gets to the post office today, or it will never make it in time. I'm counting on you. Claire.

He stared at the tape, then at Sam.

"Sergeant Siler might have something we can play this on," she suggested.

"You're supposed to spend the evening with Pete," Daniel reminded her, but she could tell his thoughts were elsewhere.

"I'll call him and tell him I'm running a little late. Besides it's not like I haven't seen all of Wormhole X-treme before. And it's not everyday that one of my best friends gets to see things from his childhood. Unless of course," she added self-consciously, "that is, you'd rather be alone to go through all this stuff."

"Actually, for once, I'd rather not be. Not for this. Sam, if I'm right about what this tape is..."

"Daniel?"

"Let's just see if we can find a machine that will play it," he decided. "I'll worry about the fallout later."

Sergeant Siler was still in his electronics cubbyhole down the hall from Sam's lab when they tracked him down. He looked at the tape curiously.

"How old do you think this is?" he asked.

Daniel answered succinctly. "Old."

"I don't know, Sir. My equipment is pretty sophisticated. Might just pick up a lot of background noise from the original recording. If this thing's really as old as you say it is, it's possible that the sound decayed a long time ago."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know all that," Daniel said impatiently.

Siler loaded the tape onto the state-of-the-art tapedeck. Daniel's hands curled into fists as he watched the reels spin slowly. At first there were a lot of crackles, screeches, and hisses. Then faintly, behind all the noise, Daniel heard the voice of a woman.

"Hi, Sweetie, this is Mommy!"

Daniel grew still. More than thirty years had passed since he'd heard his mother's voice. His eyes immediately glistened, and he pressed his lips together tightly.

Sam pressed the pause button. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Sam asked.

His jaw was set, and he swallowed hard, but Daniel nodded bravely.

"Okay. Sergeant Siler, would you excuse us?"

Siler looked at Daniel and back at the Major.

"Sure thing, Major. I'll be around if you need anything. Just page me."

When they were alone, Sam released the pause button, and the tape continued.

"And this is your father, Danny," Melburn Jackson said, as if he was being forced to do something that was of no interest to him.

"Happy birthday!" they said, somewhat in unison.

"Gosh, Melburn," Claire said softly, "I can't believe this is the eighth time we've made one of these tapes. Next year, we're going to stay home with him. I'm not going to leave him – I'm not going to leave you alone any more on your birthday, Daniel. Sweetie, I'm so sorry we can't be with you again this year, but I know you're being very grown up about it. Be sure to ask Mrs. Walsh to call some of the boys and girls in the building to come over for a piece of your birthday cake. It will be just like last year."

"And tell them to take lots of pictures," his father reminded him, although it sounded more like an order.

"Okay, Sweetie," Claire added. "I'm sorry this is so short, but we have to head back to the site, and it takes a long time to get there. But we'll be together real soon. That's a promise. Now say something nice to him, Melburn."

"Oh, uh, hmmm, Danny, remember that when your mother and I come home next month, we're going to take you to your new school.

You're very lucky to get in, you know, but you have an exceptional mind, son, so I know you'll make very us proud."

"Good heavens, Melburn," Claire upbraided her husband. You could almost see her jamming her elbow into his ribs. When he failed to add anything further, Daniel's mother planted a kiss close to the microphone and continued. "Be a good boy, Daniel. We love you very much and can't wait to get back home to be with you. Just a few more weeks, and I'll be able to give you a real big hug. Bye-bye for now, Sweetie, and always remember, I love you."

Sam stopped the tape and looked across the counter at Daniel, the knuckles of his right hand jammed up against his mouth. He stared at the speakers that had brought his parents' voices back to life.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, Daniel," she murmured.

His eyes left the speakers and went to her face.

"Play it again, Sam," he said with a quirky little smile.

"Are you sure?"

Daniel nodded, and Sam played the sequence a second time. When his mother's last words came through the speakers, he mouthed them along with her.

"Oh, Sam," he said wistfully. "All this time I thought they'd forgotten."

"Daniel?"

"Every year they sent me a tape for my birthday. I must still have the others somewhere, maybe in one of the boxes I brought over from Jack's garage when I moved into the house. That last summer they were in Egypt, I waited and waited for the tape to come. They always arrived on my birthday. But that last year there wasn't any tape. I was so mad at my parents because I thought they'd forgotten. I thought they were too busy to think about me, and I was so mad at them."

He lowered his head, the ache in his throat nearly cutting off his air.

"I was so mad, Sam. Do you know what I did when they came home? I said I wished they'd never come home. I told them I wished they were dead. Then I locked myself in my room and wouldn't come out. I wouldn't listen to anything they said. Even when my mother swore to me she had given the tape to Jake to mail, I didn't believe her. Not until my father took the door off its hinges, spanked me, and told me to grow up, it was just a lousy tape and there were more important things in life than birthdays. My dad had never hit me before. I guess that's when I figured out that work was more important than anything or anyone else. When they were killed a month later, when that temple exhibit collapsed on them at the museum, I...I..."

"Oh, Daniel, no," Sam said, leaving her perch on the counter and kneeling down next to his stool. "It wasn't your fault. You didn't make that accident happen. Kids say that sort of thing all the time to their parents. It was just a coincidence."

"I know that, Sam. I know that now. But then...that's the memory that's stayed with me all this time. Just because I thought they were too busy to make a stupid tape recording for my birthday."

"Daniel, you were a kid. You were with strangers on a very important day in your life. You had every reason to feel cheated when it looked like your parents had forgotten."

"But they didn't forget," he murmured, tears welling in his large blue eyes. "All these years...I...they didn't forget. Jake lied. He said he'd mailed it, but he didn't. Jake must have forgotten. Oh, Sam, he forgot to mail my birthday tape."

He couldn't talk any more. Sam's arms went around his neck to comfort him, and he buried his head on her shoulder and sobbed. His heart ached, and his child's mind struggled to make sense of the fact that some adult's negligence thirty years ago had colored not just how he viewed death, but how he viewed work and relationships – especially his own – since he was the tow-haired little boy in Claire Melburn's arms in a faded photograph.

10.
The news was on when Sam unlocked her front door. As she expected, Pete made his presence known by enveloping her in his arms the instant she was in the house.

"You said you'd be late, but..." he purred in her ear, kissing her neck.

Sam welcomed his attention with a kiss of her own but cleared her throat to indicate that that was where things were going to have to be left for the moment.

"Danny!" Pete greeted Daniel with a little too much enthusiasm.

The archaeologist blushed as they shook hands. He had told Sam he'd be fine on his own, but she'd insisted that he forget about everything in his office – two-year-old unfinished reports and thirty-year-old reel-to-reel tapes – until Monday morning.

"Daniel's going to spend the weekend with us," Sam announced cheerfully, setting her purse and keys on the hall table. She gave Pete a smile that thanked him in advance for his understanding and promised a reward for his good behavior.

"This was Sam's idea," Daniel explained awkwardly, hoping the way he cradled his injured arm with his right hand wasn't too conspicuous. Sam had been unable to convince him to put the sling back on.

"Did you guys eat?" asked Pete, ignoring Daniel's apology and still just a little too up for Daniel's comfort.

"I'll have some coffee if you've got any," he replied, just managing to avoid Pete's convivial slap on the back.

"Oh, no," Sam said firmly. "You're going to get a good night's sleep. Dad's Lazyboy is in the den."

Aghast at the suggestion as he returned with three opened beers, Pete stuck in his two cents. "Your father's Lazyboy? Thought Danny was your friend. What's wrong the bed in the spare room?"

Self-consciously, Daniel explained. "I probably won't be able to sleep in a bed for a while yet," he said, the blush deepening. He tried to raise his shoulder to demonstrate what he'd done, but it was too painful. "Broke my collarbone a week or so ago."

"How'd you manage that?" Pete asked with genuine interest.

"Short story? I swerved to avoid hitting another car and landed in a ditch."

"Ouch. That must have hurt."

"Yeah, it did. Still does," he said, taking the beer Pete offered. "Hey, look, if you two had plans, I can take a cab home."

"Nothin' doin', Danny," Pete replied graciously, steering him toward the living room. "Hey, Sam, why don't you pop in a movie? Danny, are you hungry? ‘Cause if you're hungry, I made sandwiches. Sam, he looks hungry, doesn't he? The sandwiches are in the fridge."

"It's Daniel, actually," Daniel reminded Pete, as the two of them left Sam with no option but to bring in the food.
Pretending her nose was out of joint when she carried in a plate of sandwiches, Sam got her revenge. She selected a video and put it into the VCR, then sat back next to Pete with a beer in her hand and an innocent smile on her face.

"So what happened to your car?" Pete wanted to know.

Daniel grunted an answer that Pete immediately understood.

"That bad, huh?" he asked.

"You don't know the half of it," Daniel replied, taking a ham and cheese sandwich offered to him.

Sam quickly reached in front of Pete and put a napkin down just as Daniel was about to set his sandwich on the arm of his chair.

He continued talking as though she were invisible.

"That was the first new car I ever bought," he said.

Pete nodded and gave a grunt of his own. "Damn, that sucks," he replied sympathetically.

"A red 2003 –"

He stopped in mid-sentence as the lyrical voice of Julie Andrews began singing "The hills are alive with the sound of music."

In unison, Daniel and Pete groaned loudly, but Sam had control of the remote. After she pointed it at them threateningly, they stopped complaining, vocally at least. There was a great deal of rolling of eyes and pantomiming. It was unlikely that they'd leave the room. This was where the food was. She turned up the volume so she could hear over their conversation while Pete continued to commiserate whole-heartedly with Daniel over his most recent loss.

When the Mother Superior started singing, Daniel and Pete looked at one another. Suddenly, the room was filled with loud male voices.

"How do you stop a problem like diarrhea?"

They sputtered and laughed and poked each other with glee over their schoolboy parody.

"You guys are pathetic," Sam told them, catching Daniel's beer when he tried to pick it up with his left hand.

Daniel laughed out loud. The sound made Sam smile. It had been too long since he'd enjoyed himself. If it took ridiculing a movie classic, some food, and a beer or two to loosen him up, so be it. When he got sick, Pete could take care of him. Hopefully, he'd fall asleep long before that happened, but for now, Sam was content. Two of the most important people in her life were enjoying an evening together, cutting up her favorite movie, sometimes her, poking good-natured fun at each other.

Still there was something in Daniel's eyes, a wistfulness, that Pete's hale-fellow-well-met couldn't penetrate. Daniel looked at her. The smile he gave her was so sad. Pete Shanahan's company wasn't what he needed.

"How about another round?" she suggested.

"Sure, Sam," said Pete. "You want another beer, Danny? He'll have another beer, too, Sam, thanks."

"It's Daniel, actually," Daniel said once more, knowing his preference would go unnoticed and not really caring anymore.

He reached for another half a sandwich from the tray on the coffee table but never picked it up, his attention drawn back to the movie. Julie Andrews sat in the middle of the bed in her fancy white nightgown with all the Von Trappe children gathered around. Daniel leaned forward in his seat, knees together, bottle of beer clutched in both hands while he watched intently.

"Rain drops like something and kittens with noses," he sang softly. "Snowflakes on something and big fire hoses."

Sam took his empty bottle and replaced it with a caffeine-free Coke. He didn't even notice as he continued to sing all the wrong words.

"When the snake bites, when the green lights, when I'm feeling sad. It's then I remember my favorite things..."

Tears streamed down his face. He stumbled through the last line, then lowered his head, made a deep belch, and moaned sorrowfully.

"Pete," Sam said, tilting her head in the direction of the bathroom.

Pete put down his beer and stood up. Slipping a hand under Daniel's right armpit, he got him to his feet.

"Come on, Danny," he said reassuringly. "We're just gonna go down the hall and say a few prayers to the porcelain goddess."

"It's...Daniel, Peter," Daniel said insisted, impressing himself with a very bad imitation of Bette Davis.

"Doesn't take much, does it," Pete said over his shoulder as they headed out of the living room.

"Nope," she confirmed. "I warned you."

By the time they were finished in the bathroom, Sam had the Lazyboy – an aged wreck from the eighties – draped with a sheet and extra pillows. Daniel was still singing about his favorite things, but at least he'd stopped crying. Pete spoke to him cheerfully as he got him out of his clothes, as if Daniel were his kid brother. Sam produced a container of Gold Bond Powder and sprinkled it liberally on Daniel's chafed abdomen and back. Then she handed the clavicular strap over to Pete.

"Wanna know one of my favorite things?" asked Daniel, oblivious to Sam's ministrations.

"What might that be?" Pete humored him. He slipped the strap onto Daniel's left arm, pulled it around his middle, and pressed the velcro grips together.

"Baseball. I love baseball. Mr. Walsh took me to a baseball game on my birthday."

Pete fit the next part of the strap around Daniel's elbow and over his shoulder.

"Yeah? You like baseball, do you, Danny?"

"It's Daniel, actually, and yes, I do," Daniel answered, climbing into the Lazyboy awkwardly. "Sam, this chair smells funny."

"Baseball. That's great, Danny," Pete went on, fastening the shoulder strap in place, "‘cause if you like baseball –"

"I love baseball."

"– I got season tickets for the Rockies."

After he helped Daniel back into his t-shirt, Pete helped him to lie back in the recliner. A minute later, Daniel attempted to get up again without any success. He looked up at Sam and elected to stay where he was.

"You'd better call Teal'c and tell him where I am," he said to Sam. "He might be worried."

"Did that," Sam said as she covered him with a top sheet and blanket. "While you were saying your prayers."

"I said a prayer for Jack."

"Did you?" she asked, gently stroking his hair just above the healing scalp wound.

"I say one for him every night," he murmured with a sigh. "But nobody listens to me."

* * *

The stale smell of cigar smoke that permeated the Lazyboy woke Daniel when his sinuses became so congested that he couldn't breathe. Gasping for air, he struggled to get up from the recliner, but without assistance, he was stuck where he was like a turtle on its back. Twice he called for Teal'c before remembering where he was.

Furious at his own helplessness, he swore in Abydonian and tried once more, unsuccessfully, to sit up. In the process, he twisted his shoulder and cried out as pain radiated down his arm and across his chest. He didn't try to contain his misery. He slammed his right hand down on the arm of the Lazyboy.

"Damn it!" he shouted.

The curse was following by a loud sneeze and another curse as the two halves of his clavicle grated against each other.

Afraid he might wake his friends, he forced himself to be quiet. Then he made out the sounds coming from the next room. At first he couldn't place them, but as they gradually grew louder, he knew.

"Oh, God," he said out loud, embarrassed by what he heard.

He grabbed the pillow and pressed it over his ears. It didn't help. The sounds penetrated the pillow and the blanket he dragged over his head. He tried not to think about what Sam and Pete were doing, but the steady creaking of the bed next door made him imagine things he didn't want to imagine, things he shouldn't, not about a close friend. Even worse, the things he was imagining were leading him to a place he didn't particularly want to go. A vision of the girl from Starbucks with the diamond in her nose and the ring through her bottom lip popped into his mind making him feel only slightly less guilty about what he was thinking, and it did nothing to quell the stirring ache.

With an herculean effort, Daniel propelled himself to a sitting position. Unable to lower the footrest of the LazyBoy unaided, he inched clumsily to the edge, losing his balance and falling onto his backside on the floor with a grunt. Once the shock and embarrassment of that wore off, he used the chair to get himself to his feet. In the dark he groped his way to the bathroom, closed the door, and felt along the wall until he found the light. With an unsteady right hand he struggled to get his t-shirt over his head, then pulled off the unwanted strap. He stared at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. There was still an obvious swelling where his collarbone was broken. Doctor Warner had told him that it was healing as expected although it would probably be that way for at least a month. To Daniel's eyes, the bruising looked worse than before. His left arm hung at his side, useless except as a place to put his watch.

When he turned on the cold water, it sounded like the blast from an ion cannon. He dropped his briefs onto the floor and stepped into the icy shower, but to his dismay things had gone on too long, and there was no choice but to take matters into his own hand.

A short time later he was dried off and fully dressed, except for the strap which he couldn't put back on without help and didn't want to anyway. He had already spent more time than necessary here, getting drunk last night and making a complete ass out of himself.

As he passed Sam's bedroom, he could hear his friends' voices, softly now. He didn't need to hear the words. He had a pretty good idea what they were saying to each other. Another ache gripped him, seizing his heart. He remembered all too well the sweetness that followed union. He could still feel Sha're's head on his shoulder, his arms around her as he held her tightly for fear that it was all a dream and their happiness wasn't real.

As quietly as possible, Daniel opened the door to Sam's library and sat down at her desk. Switching on the lamp, he found a piece of paper and a pen. The words flowed out almost faster than he could write them. A couple of times he stopped to rub his nose on the back of his hand, but he kept writing. He took a second sheet of paper and forged ahead, then signed his name, underlining it twice for emphasis.

Then he grabbed his jacket from the hall closet and slipped silently out Sam's front door without a second thought.

* * *

"Daniel's not up yet?" Sam asked as she sleepily stumbled into the kitchen on Saturday morning.

"Don't think so," Pete told her. "I haven't seen him."

"That's odd. If he's not the first one up to make coffee, he usually wakes up as soon as he smells it."

"I don't think he could smell anything after spending all night in the piece of crap of a chair in the den."

"That's my dad's chair," Sam reminded him, as she kissed him seductively. "I'll just go and check on him."

Heading toward the back of the house, she noticed the lamp was on in the library.

"I didn't leave this on," she said aloud as she walked in. "I wasn't even in here last night."

She reached for the switch at the base of the lamp and saw two folded pieces of paper, one addressed to her, the other to Pete. Grabbing them, she flew into the den only to find what she expected. The recliner was in disarray, and Daniel and the few belongings he had brought with him were nowhere to be seen. Draped over the towel rack in the bathroom was his clavicle brace. A quick look in the hall closet confirmed her suspicions.

"Pete," she called as she ran back to the kitchen. "Daniel's gone."

Pete turned off the burner from beneath the eggs he'd been cooking.

"What? Why would he do that?"

"I don't know, but he left us both notes."

She opened hers first and read it to her boyfriend.

Pete unfolded his and read it silently.

11.
A cold, steady rain was falling by the time Daniel reached the Chapel Hill Mall bus stop. His wet feet ached. The loafers weren't meant for as much walking as he had done since leaving Sam's house. It would be at least an hour before the first bus heading downtown arrived at six-forty-five, so he sat down on the bench under the shelter to rest. An urban dweller at heart, he'd learned all the bus routes when he first moved here to Colorado Springs even though he owned a car. It was a good thing, too, because that car used to break down a lot. On more than one occasion Sergeant Siler had spotted him waiting for a bus and offered him a ride to Cheyenne Mountain. Sam had done all she could to keep "The Bomb," as Jack called the rusting Chevelle, going until there was nothing left to repair.

"You can mend an old blanket just so many times, Daniel," she had explained to him.

I think the same can probably be said for me right about now, he told himself, drawing his knees up on the bench in the bus shelter and closing his eyes. But there was no rest for the weary. The wind whipped the rain across Chapel Hill Drive right into the shelter. Without the clavicular brace, his shoulder ached as he leaned against the glass wall of the bus stop. He unzipped his backpack and rummaged through the damp clothes to find the bottle of Tylenol and swallowed two without water. Sam had insisted that he bring along the pills Doctor Warner had prescribed for pain, but he hated taking them. They made him sleepy, and there was so much else he'd rather be doing. He should really head into the base to get caught up. Doctor Weir was going to think he was slacking off if he didn't get those reports summarized. And he could listen to his birthday tape again if Siler was around. The thought cheered him a little until he remembered that it was Saturday and Siler would be home with his family where he belonged.

The lights from the downtown bus glared as it turned the corner and pulled up to the bus stop. Daniel checked the number of quarters in his pocket and the cash in his wallet. He had just enough for exact change and maybe a cup of coffee when he got downtown. The doors opened, and he squished up the steps, paid his fare, and squished to an empty seat. It was the first run, and nobody else boarded the bus with him. He huddled over the heat vent that ran the length of the bus, cherishing its warmth. He hadn't realized just how cold he was until he stopped moving.

The window beside him was fogged up, and he used his sleeve to clear a spot to look out. It was impossible to see across the street. In fact, there was little to see beyond the rain and the watery taillights of the cars to his left. On a good day, the sun would be up and shining brightly on the mountains. This, however, was not a good day.

Daniel rubbed the fingers of his left hand to get some feeling into them just as the bus hit a bump in the street. Unsupported by the Torture Device, the two halves of his clavicle pushed sideways like tectonic plates under the Earth, sending shockwaves through his body. His shoulder hurt enough that, as the bus approached the Penrose Community Hospital stop, he considered getting off to have it looked at; but the bus was crowded now with other passengers on this rainy morning, and someone sat down next to him before he could get up. So he continued riding, the motion of the bus gently rocking him to sleep.

When he awoke at the Downtown Terminal, the side of his head hurt from leaning against the glass. It took all his strength to drag himself off the bus and into the downpour. He still had a ten-block walk to his house, seven if he cut across the train tracks. But if he crossed the tracks, he'd miss the supermarket. He decided on the long way. He hadn't been home in ten days. Most of the stuff in the fridge was probably going to have to be tossed. Might as well get a few things to tide him over until he had an opportunity to do some real food shopping.

Drenched again by the time he reached the store, Daniel grabbed a cart, barely missing some kids who had taken cover from the rain under the front entrance. His shoulder hurt so badly that he didn't even wonder why they were out so early on a Saturday morning.

"Hey, man, watch what you're doing," complained one of the boys.

"Sorry," Daniel said quickly. "Didn't see you there. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, dude, no thanks to you."

"Get your license for that thing at Pep Boys?" asked someone else.

"Look, I'm just gonna go inside now," Daniel answered, in no mood to communicate. The last thing he wanted was a fight with four healthy youngsters. With two good arms, he had no doubt he could handle a couple of them. Four was hoping for just a little too much. With a broken collarbone, he only wanted to get out of their way fast.

One of the boys made chicken sounds as he walked past them into the store.

Inside the supermarket he felt better, safer, and quickly forgot about the teenagers. He moved up and down the aisles rapidly, picking up only a few things that he could fix easily. Later he'd call Sam and ask her to help him out. That was, if she was still talking to him. Hell, he thought, looking at his watch, Sam and Pete were probably just waking up. For a second an unwelcome image of them looking longingly into one another's eyes, sleep still blanketing them in its seductive warmth, burst into his brain.

"Don't even go there."

"Jack?" Daniel said, turning abruptly on his right heel to see his friend riding on the end of the shopping cart.

"I know what you're thinking," Jack said. "Even I haven't gone as far as you did last night."

"I don't want to know how far you've gone, thank you," Daniel muttered, as he tossed a box of Grape Nuts into the cart. "Now get off."

"No, that's what you did, my friend."

"Jack!"

A middle-aged woman Daniel recognized from the neighborhood looked up from her cart. She was looking at him oddly, and he blushed as she gave him a wide berth.

"See-see-see-see-see," Daniel hissed but without the bounce that usually accompanied any verbal indication of agitation. "That's Mrs. Krumpp. She lives across the street from me. She's gonna think I'm..." He twirled his fingers next to his head. "Go away, Jack."

"Daniel, will you just relax?" Jack replied. "She can't see me."

"Maybe not, but she can hear me talking to you."

"No, she can't, Daniel."

"Jack."

"She can hear you talking to yourself."

"And you want me to relax?" Daniel answered, his voice rising a few notes.

Jack hopped down from the cart when they entered the next aisle. He pointed at some cans on the shelf. Daniel picked up a can of baked beans.

"Survival food," Jack reminded him.

Daniel ignored him.

"What if the Gould attack, and you don't have any baked beans on the shelf?"

Daniel leaned his elbow on the handgrip and rubbed his tired face. He looked at the can of baked beans and put it back.

"What are we supposed to do, Jack, hurl cans of baked beans at the Gould? Our new secret weapon. Fantastic. Wonder how much the Pentagon will fork over per can. Maybe I should invest in baked bean futures. Now look, Jack, I have five blocks to walk in the rain with these groceries, and only one functioning arm at the moment –"

"Lucky for you, or you'd really have been miserable last night."

"Shut up, Jack."

Mrs. Krumpp had just turned her cart into the aisle. When she saw Daniel this time, she approached cautiously.

"Dr. Jackson," she said kindly, "you're here early."

With a tired smile, Daniel replied, "Mrs. Krumpp, nice to see you."

"You, too," she answered. "I like to get my shopping done before the Saturday rush. If I may ask, are you all right? We haven't seen your car in the driveway all week, and, well, your mail started piling up, so I took it in for you. Dr. Jackson, there was something in the paper about an accident out on I-25 involving a red Jeep."

""Yep, that was me," he confessed with that quirky grin of his. "And please, call me Daniel."

"Well, if you don't mind my saying so...Daniel, you look awful. Are you certain you're all right?"

"Yes, thank you."

By the look on her face, he knew she didn't believe him.

Mrs. Krumpp opened her purse, took out a pen and small notebook, and scribbled something on one of the pages. "Here's my phone number," she said, handing the paper to Daniel. "Just holler if you need anything. Anything at all. I mean it."

He smiled at her, his sweetest smile, and Mrs. Krumpp melted before his eyes. Women always seemed to want to take care of him. The nursing staff at the base, the third shift tech crew, Mrs. Krumpp, Sam, Janet – no, not Janet, not any more.

His neighbor floated away to finish her shopping. Daniel looked at the poor selection he'd made – a quart of milk, some cheese, an unsliced loaf of bread from the bakery section, and a package of Oreo cookies, the box of Grape Nuts, and a two-pound bag of coffee beans. It was enough to hold him for a few days until he could sweet talk Sam into forgiving him for running out on her in the middle of the night. She'd give in eventually. She'd forgiven him for not visiting her while he was ascended, even though she'd been deeply offended when Jack and Teal'c revealed that they'd seen him. She'd had some choice comments for him when they came back from Vis Uban until she realized that he didn't remember a thing from that time. He had only Jack and Teal'c's word about what he had done for them and a vague memory of helping Ry'ac and Bra'tac. Almost a year later, he remembered little more than that. With all the other things he had to think about, he'd accepted the loss of ascended memories.

At the self-scan he bagged his groceries, slid his ATM card through the reader, and waited a little impatiently for his receipt. Outside the rain was falling even harder than before, but at least the snotty teenagers were gone. Across the parking lot, Mrs. Krumpp was pushing her cart toward her car. In the pink overhead lights, Daniel noticed that she wasn't alone. The boys who had annoyed him when he went into the supermarket were racing back and forth in front of her and behind her, taunting her, jostling her cart.

"What do you want?" he heard Mrs. Krumpp scream at them.

Daniel didn't wait to hear the answer. His long legs carried him quickly to his neighbor's aid. He said nothing until he was on the heels of the teens. Dropping his groceries, he tapped the closest boy on the shoulder.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

"Hey, look," said one of the boys. "It's the One-Armed Man. Isn't someone looking for you? Like your mama?"

The boys laughed until Daniel took hold of the teenager's jacket and shoved him against a nearby car.

"Don't get smart with me, son," he threatened, wondering what he was actually doing. "Leave the lady alone."

"And who's gonna make us?" someone asked.

"I will," Daniel replied with a bravado he didn't really feel. He might be stubborn and argumentative, but he generally avoided physical confrontations.

"You and what army, Four Eyes?" another teen wanted to know.

While they surrounded him, Mrs. Krumpp left her groceries in the rain and ran for her car.

"Look, why don't you guys just go play somewhere else," Daniel warned. "Because you really don't what to get into a fight with me."

"Why's that?" asked one of the boys. "You like the Highlander or something? You got a sword under that jacket there, do you?"

The youth grabbed the zipper on Daniel's jacket and yanked it down. Daniel pushed his hand away, not wanting to hurt him.

One of the other teenagers said, "Maybe he's Superman with those glasses."

He lunged forward, grabbing for Daniel's glasses. Daniel tried to move out of his reach and got his cheek scratched instead. His glasses flew off his face and clattered on the asphalt. Someone picked them up and tossed them over Daniel's head. He didn't try to get them back. Instead he pushed one youngster into another. With his training he could probably break somebody's neck with one hand, but he was the adult, and these were just kids. Mrs. Krumpp was safe in her car. He didn't have to worry about her now; but the skinny boy from the Roosevelt Home for Children, outnumbered and overpowered, didn't want to fight. He also wouldn't let them see that he was angry or afraid, even though he was both. Teal'c had taught him to keep a cool head in a fight, Jack had taught him to keep that head down and pick his opportunities.

He grasped the wrist of the boy who held his glasses and twisted until the boy went down on his knees and cried out.

"I don't want to hurt you," Daniel almost pleaded, "but I will if I have to. Now give me the glasses."

Foolishly, the boy tossed them to one of his buddies. Daniel twisted his arm harder.

"I'll break it," he warned.

Writhing in pain, the teenager shouted to his friends, "Give him the glasses."

"Are you crazy? We can take this dude."

"He's breaking my arm!"

Out of nowhere, a fist caught Daniel on the chin, and he released the boy's arm as he fell back against the hood of a car. The impact jarred his left shoulder and knocked the breath out of him. The four teens began to pound on him, and he slipped to the ground, but the beating didn't end there. He landed on his knees, his left arm collapsing under his weight. He felt his collarbone separate completely and rip through the muscles in his chest. Acid formed quickly in his stomach and worked its way back into his throat.

Mrs. Krumpp's grocery cart stood nearby. One of the boys got behind it and at a dead run charged directly at Daniel as he lay on the ground. Daniel tried to roll out of the way, but the cart crashed into his hip.

Suddenly, the rainy morning was filled with sirens, and the boys fled in all directions. Several police officers ran across the parking lot and grabbed two of the teens as they tried to climb a cyclone fence. Mrs. Krumpp was out of her car, crying uncontrollably, trying to explain to an officer how Daniel had saved her. Daniel wished she'd shut up. His head hurt.

He pushed himself up to his knees, dizzy, the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.

"You should stay still, sir," a policeman suggested. "There's an ambulance right here. The EMTs will have a look at you."

Daniel shook his head slowly.

"I'm all right," he murmured.

Staggering to his feet, he squinted around the parking lot wondering where he'd left his grocery bags.

"My glasses," he said. "Where are my glasses?"

"Are these what you're looking for, Sir?" asked an officer.

In the man's beefy hand lay the tortoise shell frames, both lenses smashed. He took them from the policeman and put them on, trying to see through the shattered glass. He looked at Mrs. Krumpp. She was begging him to let the emergency workers look at him, saying that she'd go to the hospital with him and afterwards drive him back to his house. Daniel just stood there staring at her.

Then he looked at Jack and asked softly, "Please, I just want to go home."

12.
"Dear Doctor Weeks," Daniel typed quickly.

This had not been an easy decision – the decision to leave the SGC. He'd done it twice before, and those decisions hadn't been any easier. This time, however, nothing would dissuade him. He wouldn't hear back from Doctor Weeks in, well, weeks, so he should be able to finish up those damned file summaries for Doctor Weir in plenty of time. After a month in the desert, the last ten years would begin to seem like a bad dream. It was time to get back into the world and on with his life. If the worst happened and the Goa'uld came, he'd have no regrets.

The phone rang, and Daniel jumped. His eyes jerked to the left, but he didn't reach for the receiver. He had no trouble typing with one hand, but to stretch his right arm over his body to pick it up sent ripples of pain radiating across his chest, over his shoulder, and down his back. When he'd got home after the fight at the supermarket, he'd struggled out of his filthy jeans and flannel shirt, slipped a terry bathrobe over his underwear, and collapsed into the wing chair in the living room, only to wake up an hour later with muscle spasms in the backs of his legs. His body ached from head to toe, and he didn't want to talk to anybody. As he had all day, he let the call go to the answering machine. It was probably just Sam anyway.

On cue, Sam's voice could be heard when the answering machine came on. "Daniel, pick up the phone now. This is the sixth time I've left a message. I hope you're dressed because I'm on my way over there, and I'm going to get an explanation for why you left in the middle of the night if I have to wring it out of you. And I'm thinking your butt's gonna look real good in this sling, Daniel, so don't even think about leaving because Teal'c's with me, and we will find you."

Scratching the back of his head, Daniel sighed. With no place to go and no way to get there, he continued typing, waiting patiently for the doorbell to ring. When it finally did twenty minutes later, he straightened up slowly. He hadn't felt this bad in a long time, not since Jack brought him back from Nicaragua. Painfully, he forced himself from his desk in the study to the front door, his bare feet dragging across the carpet as if he was walking through mud.

He peered through the peephole, a little dizzy as he tried to focus with one eye. With his right hand, he pulled his bathrobe around him, preparing himself for his friends' wrath.

"Open the door, Daniel," Sam seethed.

Surrendering his dignity, he released his bathrobe and opened the front door.

Geared up for a lecture, Sam let out a gasp when she saw the archaeologist slouching before her in his underwear, his face scratched and bruised, his left shoulder slumped uncomfortably forward.

"Daniel?"

"Hi, Sam," he said, giving her a fleeting smile.

Behind her stood Teal'c, sporting a Colorado Rockies baseball cap. "Daniel Jackson, what has happened to you?" he asked, his right eyebrow arched high.

"Maybe you didn't hear," Daniel muttered sourly. "I broke my collarbone."

He turned back into his living room, unable to withstand the baleful look in the Jaffa's deep brown eyes. Sam and Teal'c followed in silence, watching helplessly as he lowered himself with agonizing deliberation into the wing chair. Bending down, Sam drew up the footstool and gently lifted the thin legs on top of it. Daniel let out a groan as he settled against the back of the chair. Teal'c took a small cushion from the sofa and placed it under Daniel's left arm. His hand was cold to the touch. At Sam's insistence, he finally allowed her to see the break. The left portion of his clavicle protruded threateningly under the skin at a grotesque angle. To his surprise, she didn't flinch as he feared she might – as he had done when he looked at it this morning.

"You must be in a lot of pain," she commented. "You really should have it seen to."

"I am," Daniel answered to both statements. Suddenly embarrassed at appearing so dependent, he lowered his eyes, his forehead wrinkling. "Please don't fuss," he insisted.

The door opened again and Pete Shanahan, a large baking dish tucked into the crook of his left arm, a bulging plastic shopping bag swinging from his left hand, his cell phone pressed to his ear with the other.

"Let me know the minute you hear something," he said in a tone Daniel had never heard him use before, adult, professional. "That's right. Yeah, thanks."

Flipping his phone closed and slipping it into his jacket pocket, the Pete that Daniel knew a little better switched back on.

"Hey, Sam," he said brightly, "I just saw Danny's neighbor when I was parking the car. She says our Danny here is a real hero. Nice lady, your neighbor, asked me to give you your mail and some lasagna. Hope you like lasagna, Danny. There's a hell of a lot of it here."

Daniel's dark-ringed eyes followed the heavy swinging bag that Pete held aloft for a few moments, but the smell of food took his mind from all the bills and junk mail that had piled up while he was in the infirmary and made his stomach whirl.

"She said you put up quite a fight before the police came," Pete added, tossing the mail bag into the matching wing chair and setting the lasagna on the antique coffee table.

On pure impulse, Daniel propelled himself out of his seat, snatched up the baking dish in his right hand before it touched the highly polished surface of the table. The dish was heavier than he expected, and he nearly tipped it over as he balanced it unsteadily in his right hand on his way into the kitchen. He put the dish down on the counter, opened the refrigerator, and turned back to the counter to pick up the lasagna. By the time he turned around again, the refrigerator door had closed. He set the lasagna down on the counter again and tried the scenario a second time with the same result. He glared at the refrigerator, his mouth tight. Finally, he grabbed a chair from the kitchen table, opened the refrigerator a third time, pushed the chair against it with his foot, and put the lasagna on the second shelf. He kicked the chair aside and gave the door a petulant shove.

In a foul mood now, he returned to the living room, grabbed up the plastic bag from the chair, and marched it into his study. He could hear his friends' voices but not the words. He didn't care what they were saying. He just wanted them to go away and leave him to die miserably all alone.

"I dunno, Sam," he heard Pete say. "His neighbor said he refused to go to the hospital."

"Daniel, please come out here," Sam called to him.

"I have to go through this mail," he answered, tossing a handful of shopping circulars into the trash can.

A handful of mail started to slip from his hand. He tried to catch it, and a bolt of pain shot through his chest as if he'd been shot. The cry that leapt from his throat before he could even think to stifle it brought the trio running. Pete pulled the chair from the desk and put it behind him just as his legs gave out. Sam's fingers were at his wrist.

"His pulse is racing," she announced.

"I'll call 911," said Pete.

"We have to take him to the SGC, Pete," Sam said decisively. "Daniel, listen to me. You're going to okay, but you know you have to get this looked at." She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the cloth strap he left at her house Saturday morning. "I think this belongs to you."

Teal'c took it from her. His face set into a deep frown, he declared authoritatively, "I will attend him."

Sam shepherded Pete out of the room, leaving the two friends alone. With a sigh of defeat he permitted Teal'c to help him to his feet and like a lamb to slaughter slipped out of his robe, then awkwardly removed his t-shirt and stood before the Jaffa in the middle of his study in just his briefs. He felt his friend's eyes on him as if Teal'c scrutiny were a whip lashing against his lean body. Every bruise, every welt, every blow those boys had laid on him was visible from his head to his toes. A furrow formed between Daniel's eyebrows, disgrace etched on his damaged features. He drew in his bottom lip to keep it still.

"You should have sought medical attention immediately, Daniel Jackson" Teal'c said quietly, his normally unshakable calm considerably shaken by what he saw. "It appears that your collarbone has been rebroken."

"Let's just get this over with, okay, Teal'c?" Daniel replied, unable to meet his friend's eyes.

Without further discussion, Teal'c fitted the strap around Daniel's waist and upper arm. Using his right hand, Daniel bent his left arm into position, palm pressed against his chest, and Teal'c brought the support up and over his shoulder and across his back, pressing the velcro fasteners together. In the midst of putting on clean clothes, a tear rolled down Daniel's cheek. Teal'c's head tilted to one side

"Perhaps I have made the strap too tight," Teal'c suggested.

"No, Teal'c," Daniel said softly, brushing away another tear. "The strap is fine."

Teal'c's large hand came to rest lightly on Daniel's right shoulder.

"There is no shame in admitting to pain incurred through a deed of honor, Daniel," he said reassuringly.

Daniel was unconvinced. "Is it honorable to have allowed myself to be ganged up on and beaten to a pulp?" he asked. "Again."

"Was not ensuring your neighbor's safety honorable?" asked Teal'c.

"Tell me how it was honorable? The odds of success were four to one."

"We have faced much greater odds each time we go through the Stargate, and yet we do it, Daniel."

"Well, not anymore," Daniel replied. "Not with Hammond retired, Janet dead, and Jack...frozen. I've had enough. I'm through."

"When you are well again, you will feel differently."

"No, Teal'c. No, I won't. I've made up my mind." He rested his weight on Teal'c back as the Jaffa bent to slip on Daniel's loafers. "When I'm well again, I'm going to Egypt to work with Doctor Weeks. When the Goa'uld come to wipe us out, I want to be doing something I love, not fighting something I hate."

13.
He had been drifting in and out for the last hour since the nurse had given him a shot in preparation for surgery on his shoulder. It dulled the pain a little, but mostly it made him sick. Earlier, when Doctor Warner had been examined the X-rays and explained the procedure in gruesome detail, nattering on and on about the trinium plate and screws that would be used to put his clavicle back together, Daniel had begun to sweat noticeably; and it took both Pete and Teal'c to keep him in the infirmary after the surgeon left.

"Where are you going, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c had asked when Daniel got up from the hospital bed.

Reaching behind him for his jacket, Daniel had replied, "I'll take my chances with the sling."

"Ahhh, I don't think that's such a good idea, Danny," warned Pete.

Unintentionally, he took hold of Daniel's left arm. The pain that shot through his body made Daniel weak in the knees. Pete apologized and tried to help him, but Daniel pushed him away, just managing to stay on his feet, and headed unsteadily toward the infirmary exit. He was less successful in fending off Teal'c who placed himself in the doorway.

"Please get out of my way, Teal'c," Daniel said.

Doctor Warner had removed the Torture Device to examine the shoulder. Now Daniel held his aching left arm still with his right hand to keep the two pieces of his collarbone from grating against one another and tearing more deeply into the already shredded muscles.

"I will not," Teal'c answered sternly. "You are behaving unlike a warrior."

"That's because I'm an archaeologist," Daniel said sullenly. "A soon-to-be-unemployed archaeologist. Just let me pass."

Teal'c's entire body seemed to expand to fill the doorway as he blocked Daniel's path.

"Return to your bed now, Daniel Jackson."

The two friends stood glowering at one another when a nurse approached.

"You can put your clothes in this, Doctor Jackson," she told him authoritatively, laying a clear plastic bag on the bed. Next to the bag she set a blue hospital gown. "I'll be back in a little while to prep you. You'll go into the OR in about forty-five minutes."

Daniel's attention momentarily diverted, Teal'c took advantage of the opportunity to steer him back toward the bed. He pulled the curtain across and started to unbutton the flannel shirt Daniel wore. Frustration borne of continual pain and exhaustion short-circuited Daniel's patience.

"I can do it myself," he snapped, jerking away.

With a curt "Very well," the Jaffa bowed and withdrew, leaving the archaeologist to manage as best he could.

Following the ritual he had established for himself since the accident, Daniel began the laborious effort of undressing. Stripped to his underwear fifteen minutes later, he folded his shirt and jeans as neatly as he could with one hand, then shoved them, along with his shoes, into the plastic bag on which his name was written in large block letters in Magic Marker. He kept his socks on. He knew how cold it could get in the infirmary, and leaving them on was easier than struggling with them.

On the other side of the curtain, Teal'c and Pete spoke together in subdued voices. Daniel knew they were talking about him, but he didn't care. He was used to being the topic of conversation around here.

Now came the arduous task of removing his t-shirt. Since breaking his collarbone, this was the hardest thing he had to do on any given day. The beating he had sustained in the supermarket parking lot on Saturday morning made it even harder. Every muscle in his back and abdomen burned as he twisted and turned in an effort to get out of the undershirt. The pain was crippling, but he forged doggedly ahead. His clumsy efforts took the last bit of strength in him, and in the end he gave up.

Swallowing his pride at last, he called out softly, "Teal'c, could you help me?"

When the Jaffa did not immediately respond, Daniel called his name again, a little louder this time. Still no one came. Curious, he peered through the curtain. The infirmary appeared deserted. Rubbing his hand over his tired eyes, he sat down on the edge of the bed, After a few deep breaths, he directed his waning energy toward finishing the mission. He could do this. He could finish undressing without Teal'c's help.

His determination paid off. He reached his right hand over his shoulder and grasped the back of the t-shirt. On the offensive now, he attacked the shirt with all the rage that had built up in his heart during the past few months. It was a pitched battle, and he was momentarily blinded with the shirt caught over his head; but it wasn't Daniel's nature to give up when the goal was in sight. He made one last stab and yanked the shirt it forward. The movement finished the work started by the beating yesterday morning. The section of bone that had begun to heal severed completely. One ragged end slipped past the other and imbedded itself into the back of the pectoral muscles, dragged deltoids backward, forcing Daniel's arm into an unnatural angle.

The sharp pain took his breath away. He had done all he could. Exhausted and in escalating agony, he collapsed onto the bed, the hospital gown clutched in his right fist, the physical weight of his efforts more than his spirit could sustain. When the nurse came with an injection of Nembutal in preparation for surgery, Daniel was more than ready.

Finally, the aids came for him. He tried to help get himself onto the gurney, but he had nothing left. As he was wheeled out of the ward, a large dark face came into view and with an affectionate hand on his good shoulder, Teal'c murmured something in Jaffa. Daniel nodded, smiling valiantly. Sam's sweet face came into view as she leaned toward him and kissed his forehead. He gave Pete and Doctor Weir a tremulous thumbs up. As his friends passed from view his hand dropped, and his smile disappeared. During the trip down the corridor to the OR, Daniel watched the lights pass by overhead. Then the corpsmen lifted him onto the operating table.

Doctor Warner, a mask covering his kind features, peered down into his face.

"We're almost ready," he said.

To Daniel's ears, it sounded as though the surgeon were speaking underwater.

"You know Doctor Emerson, the anesthesiologist," Doctor Warner added, pointing to the woman seated to Daniel's right.

Daniel's eyes slowly shifted in her direction.

"Hi, Doctor Jackson," she said. "It's good to see you again."

A nurse stepped in front of Doctor Warner and reached behind Daniel's neck to untie the blue gown that had been put on him, sliding it from his arms and lowering it to his waist. She placed monitor leads on his chest while someone else covered his legs and abdomen with a blue surgical sheet. Daniel noticed that it was Air Force Blue. He was certain he had noticed the same thing on previous occasions, but he couldn't remember.

Doctor Emerson took Daniel's hand in hers. That was nice, he thought, until he realized that she had stretched his arm out and was strapping it to the operating table extension. Then she tapped the back of his hand hard to raise a vein. It hurt, and he tried to pull his hand away, but the strap holding his arm in place was inescapable.

"I'm freezing," he murmured to no one in particular.

Somewhere a cabinet opened and closed, and a warm blanket was spread across his legs.

"That should help," the nurse who had attached the leads assured him. "Don't worry about anything, Doctor Jackson. We're going to take good care of you. Just like we always do."

He knew she meant it, but he couldn't quell the fear rising along with his stomach. He had a bad feeling about this. He should have left the infirmary when he had the chance.

The nurse scrubbed his left shoulder and chest with Betadyne. It felt like she was rubbing a rock against his bruised skin.

The anesthesiologist called his name, and Daniel turned his head toward her.

"There will be a little stick," she said quietly, slipping the needle into his hand and taping it in place, "then you'll feel something cold in your arm."

He nodded and waited to feel the all-too-familiar sensation in his vein. He knew he should just let go and allow the anesthesia to work, but he couldn't stem the tide of terror. Doctor Emerson pressed a tissue to Daniel's cheek and dried the tear that fell.

"You're going to be all right, Doctor Jackson," she promised him. Behind her mask she smiled. "We've been through this before. We're not going to let anything happen to you. Now I need you to count back from one hundred," she said next. "Can you do that for me?"

Daniel swallowed, trying to keep from heaving.

"One hundred," he whispered, his voice trembling. "I don't want to do this. Please."

"Count for me, Doctor Jackson," the anesthesiologist urged him.

He tried to tell her again to stop, but he heard himself obeying.

"Ninety-nine..."

No, no, no, he didn't want to go to bed. He wanted his birthday tape.

"Doctor Jackson, try to relax," Doctor Warner coaxed, eyeing his patient's blood pressure on the monitor. "The sooner we get started, the sooner it will be over. This won't take long at all."

He didn't care if it only took five minutes. He'd rather have root canal than have his shoulder opened up and a ton of metal screwed into the bone. He'd set off metal detectors everywhere he went.

"Ninety...eight..."

"He's under," Doctor Emerson announced.

"Good. Let's get started," Doctor Warner said. "Scalpel."

Daniel felt pressure against his skin accompanied by a sound that reminded him of something from high school biology.
"ninety-sev...en...Janet..."

* * *

The crunch of fallen leaves under foot echoed through the mist as Daniel led the way across the open ground of P3X-666. He tried not to get too far ahead, so that Doctor Fraiser could keep up. He looked behind him. He could hear her footsteps, but the fog had swallowed her. This was totally insane, but he never gave it a second thought when Jack ordered him to accompany the doctor to see what could be done to help Airman Wells. He was glad it wasn't Balinsky. He liked Balinsky. He was one of the brightest archaeologists Daniel had ever worked with. He was young and eager and full of wonder at everything he'd seen out there. He'd get over it if he lived long enough. Too many didn't.

Wells was badly wounded. A staff blast had passed right through him. There was blood everywhere. Daniel tried to stop the bleeding, pressing his hand against the gushing wound. Where was Janet? She had been right behind him. Daniel did his best to keep both Wells and himself calm. He talked about anything that came into his head, listening to Wells's answers over the increasing noise of approaching enemy fire.

Out of nowhere Doctor Fraiser appeared, and that's when the nightmare began. Fraiser's uniform suddenly caught fire. Daniel watched her sit straight up from the impact of an energy weapon. By the look on her face, he could tell she didn't know what had happened. She fell backwards, the bag of saline she'd been holding on her shoulder sliding down her chest and rolling to one side. He tore off his bandana and pressed it against the gaping hole where her left breast had been to stop the bleeding, to hide the hideous indecency the Goa'uld had inflicted on her. There was nothing else he could do as he cradled her in his arms, calling for a medic.

"Fraiser's been hit!" he heard himself scream over and over, his voice growing more and more strident with every passing second. He shouted almost incoherently into his radio, "Sierra Gulf Niner! I need a medic!"

His cries reverberated against the deepening gloom. He was alone amid the chaos. There was no one who could help. Doctor Fraiser looked at him unseeing, her lips moving to form her daughter's name. Before Daniel could promise he'd look after Cassie, Janet was gone.

He let go of the blood-soaked bandana and wiped his fingers on his trousers, then tenderly traced the line of her cheek, her lips, her chin, as he said goodbye to her. Knowing it would cause her no pain, he yanked her dogtags from her neck and tucked them into his jacket pocket while he made a silent vow. Then he raised his hand to her eyes and performed the last act loving one friend can perform for another.

Gently, he picked up the small, still woman in his arms and, leaving Airman Wells screaming, walked in the direction of the Gate. It was up hill all the way. Once he turned around and spied the red Jeep against a clump of trees, the radiator steaming. He moved on, trudging upward through the mist. All around him, the air was heavy with the odor of naquadah from gliders and energy blasts, napalm from flamethrowers and howitzers, and sulphur from automatic weapons. Finally, he reached the Stargate. With his right hand he pressed the coordinates on the DHD. Nothing happened. He tried again, and again nothing happened.

And then he remembered. Nothing was going to happen. The Stargate was closed.

* * *

A blinding migraine stirred Daniel from the half-stupor that had held him in its sway since returning from surgery. His eyes were closed, but he could detect the variations in light as people moved around him. The muted strobe effect made his head hurt worse. When he tried to turn his head, his neck hurt. His eyes opened abruptly at this new discomfort.

Someone was speaking and jiggling his left foot. Perturbed, he drew up his knee to get his foot out of range.

"So you know how you said you like baseball, Danny?" Pete said from the foot of the bed. "I've got a great idea. While you're recuperating, why don't you come up to Denver for a few days. We'll take in a baseball game. You like baseball, right?"

Daniel didn't recall telling Pete anything of the kind. He did recall the last baseball game he'd gone to – too many hot dogs, too much cotton candy, too many years ago.

"Yes," he agreed quickly, hoping an easy capitulation would shut Pete up.

The stiffness in his neck prevented him from making his usual side-to-side gesture, so he settled for tilting his head once to the right. It only added to the headache. He'd thrown up twice, once in recovery and once when he got back to the unit. His skull was pounding, and sweat oozed from every pore. By the amount of saliva filling his mouth, he knew it was only a matter of time before he had to throw up again.

"Hey, Danny, guess what," Pete went on. "I talked to a buddy of mine in the Colorado Springs Police Department. You know those kids you helped catch?"

"What about them?" Daniel asked, only half interested.

"Turns out they aren't kids at all. They'll all over twenty-one, and the cops have been after them for months. Seems they were wanted for a variety of things from harassment to assault. They're looking at some hard time." Pete rested a hand on Daniel's other foot. "You done good, Danny."

Knowing he'd lost the battle for his name, Daniel frowned and closed his eyes against the garish infirmary lights. He didn't care about "those kids." He didn't care about anything. His shoulder hurt, his eyeballs felt like there were forks stuck in them, and his stomach was in upheaval. He just wanted Pete to go away and leave him in peace.

From behind closed eyes, he heard Sam's soft voice.

"How's he doing?" she asked.

"He's a little grumpy," he heard Pete answer. "But I guess he's entitled to be grumpy, considering he's got an entire hardware store in his shoulder. You have a right to be grumpy, don't you Danny?"

"It's Daniel," he murmured, lobbing a final parting shot.

"Hey, Daniel," Sam said cheerfully. "Miss Wanda sent up some soup for you. Why don't you try it?"

Daniel's blue eyes opened half-way as Sam took the lid off the Styrofoam bowl. The smell of the soup triggered seismic activity in his digestive track.

"Is it hot in here?" he asked, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his right hand.

He began to breathe quickly, trying desperately to swallow the bile working its way up his esophagus so he wouldn't embarrass himself, but he lost this skirmish almost before it began. He tried to reach for the basin sitting on the tray table, but his vision was blurry and his depth perception out of kilter.

"Teal'c?" he gasped.

A strong arm slid behind his neck and helped him sit up. When the worst was over, he leaned back against the Jaffa.

"Teal'c?" he said again.

"I am here, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c answered, wiping Daniel's mouth with the tissue from the box Sam held out to him.

"Hot. It's hot."

The hospital gown was soaked with perspiration. Teal'c placed the back of his hand against Daniel's burning cheek.

"Major Carter," he said with concern, "something is wrong. Daniel Jackson's temperature has risen."

Sam handed the basin for Pete to dispose of and said, "I'll get the nurse."

"I'm...sorry," Daniel said.

"For what, Daniel?" Teal'c asked.

"I c-couldn't...convince th-them...I...tr-tried..."

"All will be well, Daniel," Teal'c comforted him, his deep voice soothing, reassuring. Pete handed him a cool, wet cloth, and Teal'c held it against Daniel's brow.

"No one-no one would listen...they closed the-the Stargate...I've lost my-my-my arm...and now-now they're c-coming...the Gould are c-coming."

14.
"You've told us everything it isn't," Doctor Weir said to the surgeon. She glanced across the Briefing Room table at the two remaining members of SG-1. "Do you have any idea what it might be that's made Doctor Jackson so sick?"

Doctor Warner spread his hands helplessly.

"I'm afraid I have no idea, Ma'am," he answered, his kindly face clearly showing concern. "I've done similar procedures hundreds of times. I don't think it was anything my team or I did."

Pushing back his chair, Teal'c stood up and stared balefully at the doctor. Then he turned his back and walked to the Gate Room window.

"Keep working on it," Doctor Weir said, dismissing the surgeon.

"Doctor Weir–" Doctor Warner replied.

"No one's blaming you," she tried to assure him.

Teal'c looked over his shoulder as Doctor Warner gathered up the papers on the table and left the Briefing Room.

"Okay, you two," Doctor Weir said. "What is it?"

"It is nothing, Doctor Weir," the Jaffa said politely.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," Sam replied, lowering her head for a moment. "It's not nothing. Daniel's sicker than he's ever been – except for when he was dying from radiation poisoning – and our Chief Medical Officer is stumped. I realize Doctor Warner is a good doctor –"

"Daniel Jackson had misgivings about having the operation," Teal'c interrupted.

Doctor Weir rose and joined Teal'c at the window.

"Daniel has misgivings about a lot of things, Teal'c," she said.

"He is usually correct."

"I know you both had a tremendous amount of faith in Doctor Fraiser," Doctor Weir said gently, not wanting to offend, "but I've been assured that Doctor Warner is the best we have. You saw the man's face. He's as concerned about Daniel as anyone. Aren't you being a little hard on him?"

"Daniel's our friend," Sam said defensively. "We lost him once. We were lucky enough to find him again." She couldn't finish her thought.

"I do not believe Daniel is ill because of anything Doctor Warner may or may not have done," said Teal'c, still gazing down at the idle Stargate. "He has suffered many losses, more than most people must endure. He now mourns the loss of Doctor Fraiser, and he misses Colonel O'Neill's friendship deeply. But more than that, he believes his concerns for this world no longer matter. I believe Daniel Jackson's heart has finally broken."

* * *

The Jaffa dipped a washcloth in the basin of cool water and, wringing it out, gently laid it against Daniel's forehead. Despite acetaminophen and massive doses of antibiotics, his fever still raged. He had been delirious since the surgery late Sunday night, and Teal'c had spent every free moment since then at his side.

Now that he had no god to which to pray, Teal'c was unsure how to direct his supplication for the restoration of his friend's health. Many of those in the SGC professed a profound belief in God, though their ways of worship were diverse. Major Carter admitted that she put her faith in science. Whatever Colonel O'Neill believed he kept to himself. Daniel, however, was more ambivalent, certain that something, some higher power, had a hand in at least creating the universe. He willingly accepted that there was some truth in all religions, yet he also knew that a great many things could not be defined in terms of divine intervention alone.

Teal'c had learned much more from Daniel than the complicated belief systems of the Tau'ri. A natural teacher, Daniel had found Teal'c an eager student. In many respects, the Jaffa had surpassed the archaeologist, and over the years a mutual respect had grown up between them. It had not always been so. Once there was a time when Daniel could barely stand to sit at the same table with him. Teal'c remembered it well.

Seeing Daniel Jackson immersed in a book, the Jaffa entered the library quietly so as not to disturb him. He waited patiently until the archaeologist looked up. He did not know that Daniel was making him wait deliberately, that he had known of the alien's presence from the moment the door opened, that it was a tactic Daniel had developed as a child so that he could watch people without their being aware.

When he accepted that the Jaffa was not about to go away, Daniel finally put down his book.

"Have a seat," he said, gesturing with an upturned hand toward the chair opposite him.

"Thank you," said Teal'c.

He pulled out the chair and sat down, folding his hands together on top of the table.

There was an awkward silence between the two men. Daniel tried to look anywhere but at the Jaffa who gazed straight ahead. He drew his mouth up and inhaled to speak.

"You are uncomfortable," he heard Teal'c say.

"Uh, well, y-yes, now that you mention it," Daniel replied, exhaling.

"I am grateful to you for teaching me to read your language, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said.

Daniel said nothing.

"You do not wish to do so."

Another deep breath.

"Yeah, well, no," Daniel answered, pushing back his chair and standing up to pace. "Colonel O'Neill asked me to do this. No, that's not exactly true. He ordered me to do this."

"You refused?"

"Let's just say, I declined his original offer. He made it pretty clear that I didn't really have a choice in the matter."

"In exchange I will teach you my language and of the world of the Jaffa."

Daniel stopped pacing.

"As tempting as that is," he admitted, the fingers of his right hand rubbing incessantly against his thumb, "I think I know everything I want to know of your world, thank you." As hard as he tried, Daniel could not keep the rancor from his voice. "You seem pretty smart. So why don't we just stick to the basics. You can figure out the rest for yourself."

"Very well."

The lesson began didactically with Daniel talking about the origins of English from the Phoenicians to the Anglo-Saxons – hardly the basics – as if he were lecturing to an auditorium full of college students. He paced and talked for a very long time, detailing the influence of Latin and French. Teal'c's face never altered as he listened, absorbing everything Daniel said, even if he didn't fully comprehend what he heard.

Suddenly Daniel stopped in his tracks and asked, "Are you getting this?"

"Indeed," Teal'c replied, his voice even, his expression unchanged.

"Good, good."

Daniel continued his lecture and his pacing, talking for nearly half an hour more about the Germanic roots of the language. At last Teal'c stood up as if to leave.

"Where are you going?" asked Daniel in surprise.

"You are talking," Teal'c answered without emotion. "You are not teaching."

Daniel sputtered a little, but no words came out.

"You are avoiding your duty, Daniel Jackson," the Jaffa advised him. "In fact, you are disobeying orders."

Found out, Daniel's lips pressed together, and his face colored.

"Show me," Teal'c said.

"Wha-what?"

"For the last hour you have been telling me of your language. Show it to me."

Flustered, all Daniel managed to get out was "Why?"

Teal'c cocked his head.

"I mean," Daniel said with growing intensity, "why do you want to know? You're a warrior. You kill for a living. For God's sake, you-you-you..."

"Kidnaped your wife."

"Yes!" Daniel shouted, his hands open, directed upward.

"And you wish me dead for what I have done to those you love."

Daniel's hands now curled into fists.

"God, yes."

Teal'c spread his arms.

"Do it."

"What?"

"I stand before you unarmed, Daniel Jackson. I offer myself up to your vengeance."

"Oh, that-that's good," Daniel sputtered, laughing bitterly. He grabbed a book from one of the shelves. "With what? This?"

"You could, if you possessed the knowledge."

Daniel's laughter turned derisive, not at Teal'c's suggestion but at his own impotence.

"And if I strike you, you'll crush me like a bug."

"I could."

"I'm not crazy, Teal'c. Or suicidal."

"Yet in your heart you wish to cause me pain. We are alone. There is no one to stop you."

After a few tense moments, Daniel drew back his arm and let fly a well-aimed fist into Teal'c's midsection. The Jaffa stood motionless. The gesture gave Daniel more satisfaction than he had imagined it might. A second punch had no more affect on its target than the first, but soon Daniel pounded Teal'c body until his arms begged for rest. Even after his own knuckles started to bleed, he continued to beat the man, a lifetime of frustration behind every punch, a heart filled with grief and guilt directing every blow, until he sank to his knees, keening in agony for all that he had lost.

Teal'c stepped away from him and sat down at the table once more, listening to the man's sorrow rise up until it echoed against the hard cement walls. For what seemed a very long time, Daniel rocked back and forth, hugging himself, venting his pent-up shame and heartache. When he had no more tears to shed, he stood up, reached in his pocket for his handkerchief, dried his tears, and blew his nose. Then he sat down at the table across from Teal'c.

"There are twenty-six letters in the English alphabet," he said quietly, looking into the face of his enemy. "No, wait."

He rummaged in his briefcase for paper and pen and began to write.

"A...B...C..."

* * *

Unlike Teal'c, Sam understood that the heart was a muscle, a pump that, barring disease or physical damage, would beat in a human's breast for as many as eighty years, even more. She didn't like to think that it could be affected by emotions. If that were so, she'd have died a long time ago.

No, there had to be a logical reason for Daniel's condition.

"Please, Doctor Warner," she said intently, "let's go over it again. Tell me exactly the procedure you followed."

"Major Carter, I don't mean to be rude," Doctor Warner responded defensively. "I know you're Doctor Jackson's friend, but I assure you, I followed every known surgical protocol. Clavicle repair is routine. As I told Doctor Weir, I've performed this operation at least a hundred times myself. And I resent the implication that I may have done something wrong."

Doctor Warner left Sam fuming in the office that until two months ago had belonged to her closest friend. Some of Janet's personal items were still on her desk – Cassie's high school graduation picture, a set of Winnie the Pooh characters with SG-1's names under each in Magic Marker, the colorful silk flower arrangement Daniel had given her for her birthday to brighten her office, on the bulletin board a photo of SG-1 and Janet taken at one of General Hammond's barbecues, another of Janet and Daniel dancing at the New Year's Eve party last year.

Sam unpinned the second photo from the bulletin board, her fingers caressing the smiling faces of her friends. It was Daniel's first New Year's Eve back on Earth, the first party he'd attended after his return from Nicaragua. He'd stayed close to Janet all evening, close enough that for the next few weeks there were rumors.

Daniel had told them he was not going to come – not surprising, considering his dislike of noise and crowds since his homecoming. They hadn't tried to talk him into it, knowing he'd only dig his heels in harder if pressed. When Janet didn't show by nine, Sam chalked it up to a last minute emergency in the infirmary and went ahead and ate with the Colonel and General Hammond. The third shift Gate Room technicians' parties were renowned for plenty of good food and good music. Always come-as-you-are and always well attended, this year they had a live band made up of five airmen who played music from the forties through the nineties. Following a fantastic buffet dinner, General Hammond had asked Sam to dance. She loved to dance, and the General danced well. Even Teal'c danced with her twice. Colonel O'Neill sat on the sidelines sipping his beer, smiling at her, confusing her. She forgot all about him, though, when Janet finally made a spectacular entrance with Daniel in tow.

Her hair swept up off her neck in a French twist, Janet wore a black silk dress with a red bolero jacket that closed at her throat. On her feet were the highest high heels Sam had ever seen her wear. Long dangling earrings sparkled against the holiday decorations in the Commissary. Daniel wore his black wool suit and blue cotton shirt, the outfit he usually reserved for official occasions. He looked uncomfortable as they entered the dining room, clearly overdressed for a base party.

"Well, you're looking positively funereal," Jack commented, eyeing Daniel suspiciously. "Been paintin' the town, you two crazy kids?"

"Daniel and I had a quiet dinner in town," Janet informed him.

"So I don't suppose you want anything to eat," he said, extending an open hand toward the buffet table. "Too bad. The gang really went all out this year. They were wondering when you were gonna show up," he said to Daniel. "Most of this is for you, ya know."

Daniel looked around the room, his eyes narrowing.

"They needn't have bothered," he answered miserably.

"What?" asked Jack, pushing a bottle of beer in Daniel's direction.

Pushing the bottle back toward the Colonel, Daniel sighed.

"I don't want to be here," he mouthed, tilting his head to indicate that Doctor Fraiser wouldn't take no for an answer.

"Hey, I don't wanna be here either," said Jack aloud, opening the beer and tossing the cap in the corner. He pushed it back to Daniel.

"But we're here. At least try to look like you're having a good time."

Before Daniel even had a mouthful of beer, Janet and Sam joined them. Janet had taken off the bolero jacket to reveal the spaghetti strap dress beneath. It didn't really reveal all that much; but this was more of Janet than most people saw, and it caused a ripple. Daniel's eyes followed her, a certain hunger flashing briefly, then dying out as quickly as it appeared.

"Ladies choice, gentlemen," she announced when the band started to play Ashoken Farewell.

She took Daniel's hand and drew him protesting into the middle of the dance floor. To his friends' surprise, he was one of the few men in the room who could actually waltz, and he led the doctor competently if not gracefully around the dance floor, careful not to let his right hand stray above the back of her dress. Seeing the way he held her, it was easy to imagine them in a Civil War ballroom. Even with her high heels, she was still much shorter than Daniel. Most of the time he looked straight over her head, and he had to bend to hear her over the music when she spoke to him. He laughed out loud at whatever she said, and Janet's face brightened.

While showing Teal'c the steps, Sam looked up and saw her friends enjoying themselves. Nothing would ever come of it, no matter how good they looked together. Janet was Daniel's doctor; anything more than friendship between them was unthinkable. Even if circumstances were different, it was unlikely that Daniel would ever notice. He was one of those rare creatures who mated once for life. No matter how beautiful the other flowers in the garden might be, he didn't see any of them, not the way they wanted to be seen. Not one woman he'd met in the last seven and a half years had measured up to Sha're. One or two, like Janet, came close, but Daniel had found a way of cutting himself off from such feelings without discouraging them in others. The man had lost so much, sacrificed so much in his cause without counting the cost. He had one goal now: defeating the Goa'uld. It was no longer a matter of revenge, if it ever had been. It had become more than his life's work. It was his penance.

Sergeant Siler asked Sam for the next dance. Across the room, Janet talked with General Hammond who held a magnum of champagne in anticipation of the stroke of midnight just a few minutes away. Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill were deep in conversation. As tall as he was, Daniel momentarily disappeared in the crowded room. Then Sam saw him in conversation with Sergeant Davis, and she relaxed. When the music stopped, she thanked Siler and made her way toward her commanding officer and Teal'c.

The band's drummer beat a tattoo on the snare drum. With a broad smile on his face, General Hammond took the microphone and led the countdown.

"Three, two, one," the revelers shouted in unison, followed by cries of "Happy New Year!"

Amid the handshakes, hugs, kisses, and popping of corks, Daniel pressed himself against the wall, white as a sheet, his eyes as big as saucers. Alarmed, Jack left the table he had occupied most of the evening and threaded his way through the crowd, reaching his friend a step or two before the others, just as Daniel's knees gave out. Signaling Janet, they kept him on his feet, the Colonel joking as they guided him to the door that they should never let Daniel have more than one beer.
By the time SG-1 found a secluded place where Daniel, scarcely able to stand, could sit out of sight of prying eyes, he was hyperventilating so badly that Janet considered sending to the infirmary for a sedative. Adamantly, Daniel shook his head.

"Take it easy, Daniel," Jack said curtly. "Stop breathing so damn fast. Everything's all right. You're safe. You're in the SGC. It's just a party. Come on, just relax."

Janet touched Jack's arm.

"Colonel, may I?" she asked.

"Sure," the Colonel answered, reluctant, yielding to the doctor's request. Clueless, he drew back, his hands falling ineffectually at his sides.

Kneeling down in front of him, Janet took Daniel's hands in hers and softly called his name.

"Daniel," she said, a calm voice masking any underlying concern, "Daniel, I want you to listen to me. You're going to be all right. Look at me. Daniel, look at me."

Terror-stricken blue eyes locked onto hers, and he gripped her hands as a drowning man clings to a life preserver. He tried to tell her something, but all that came out of his mouth was increasingly frantic breathing.

"Don't talk," she ordered. "Try to breathe more slowly. With me, breathe slowly. Try, Daniel. That's better. That's it."

"No-no...sedative," he gasped finally.

The doctor smiled. "You can do this without any sedative, Daniel. You're half-way there. Colonel O'Neill's here. Sam and Teal'c are here. Your friends are all here, Daniel. We're not going to let anything happen to you."

"Perhaps, Doctor Fraiser," Teal'c suggested, "it would be helpful if Daniel Jackson were to attempt to enter a state of Kelnorim."

"Good idea, Teal'c," Janet replied with a nod. "Daniel, listen to me. I know this will be hard for you, but it might help. I want you to close your eyes and try to relax. Teal'c, can you help?"

Squatting beside the doctor, Teal'c leaned near to Daniel who struggled for breath, his eyes still filled with panic. He put a hand on Daniel's elbow and spoke in his deep, mellifluous voice.

"Daniel Jackson, imagine you are in a quiet place," he said. "The room is lit with many candles. The air is scented with the fragrance of warmed jasmine and juniper."

Until Sam sat down beside him and rested her hand on his back, Daniel would not close his eyes. Surrounded now by his closest friends, reassured by their proximity, he allowed the terror to slowly drain from his body. Although it was difficult, he managed to shut out the chaos that had triggered the attack and allowed himself to drift toward the darkness of that place where deep within his mind he had learned to find peace.

Gradually, Daniel's breathing slowed sufficiently to convince Janet that a sedative was unnecessary. Nonetheless, his trembling continued for some time; and when he found his voice again, his stammer was very noticeable.

"Oh, G-god, J-jack," he said haltingly. "I-I th-thought–"

"I know what you thought, Daniel," the Colonel assured him. He put a hand on Daniel's shoulders and gave him an understanding squeeze.

"Th-thank you, T-teal'c," he added, breathing more regularly now thought still tense. "I'm s-sorry to have c-c-caused you all s-s-s-so much t-trouble."

"You will be well again soon," Teal'c answered.

"It's over," Daniel uttered again and again. "It's over. Everything's ok-kay. I'm f-fine."

He repeated his mantra for a good ten minutes before he shook off Jack's hand and straightened his body. His eyes fell on Janet apologetically. Standing up and squaring his shoulders, he held out his hand to her.

"Doctor Fraiser," he said, much calmer now.

"Doctor Jackson," Janet replied, allowing him to help her up from the floor. If he gripped her hand a little too tightly, she didn't seem to notice.

"May I have the next dance?" he asked politely.

"I'd be delighted, sir," Janet answered.

Hand in hand, they walked down the hall and back to the party.

* * *

Sam pinned the picture back on the bulletin board, a bittersweet smile on her lips. She clung to her belief that there was a rational cause for Daniel's condition, but she had to admit that maybe Teal'c had a point.

15.
It was hot.

Daniel took his tan bandana from the pocket on his thigh and mopped his face. Funny, but despite the intense heat, his feet were freezing. He looked down. His was standing barefooted up to his ankles in water from which rose a cold, swirling white mist.

Something dripped down the back of his neck. When he looked up, he found himself in a low-ceilinged cavern. A thick eery white coating covered the ceiling, iridescent, studded with glistening stubby icicles. The whole thing reminded him of the wretchedly old refrigerator he had in his first apartment in LA. He got into trouble with his roommate's girlfriend for using her hair dryer to defrost the freezer.

In the distance the soft glare of a flashing pink and yellow neon light caught his attention through the mist. Maybe it was a directional sign. He trudged forward, his desert BDUs weighing heavily as they absorbed more and more water. That was another thing that seemed odd. Military uniform were water-resistant, made of either cotton rib-stop material or a polyester/cotton blend Sam said was called twill which Daniel hated.

"I won't wear anything that contains unnatural fibers," he had warned Jack in the early days. "If I go up in flames, I'd rather leave behind a pile of cleanly burned ash, not a toxic puddle of petroleum residue."

As he got closer to the neon sign, it's message came into view.

Welcome to Antarctica.
Next Iceberg Calving in _____ hours ____ minutes.

Beneath the sign hung a piece of soggy paper. Daniel held his flashlight up so he could read it.

"We apologize for any inconvenience," Daniel muttered.

He loosened the zipper on his jacket, but it didn't help. Beneath the jacket his tan t-shirt stuck to his back. How was it possible to be surrounded by all this ice and still be sweating so much.

The gloom was growing overwhelming, suffocating. It was getting hotter, and breathing was becoming more and more difficult, but Daniel was determined. On the up side, the tingling in his toes was no longer a problem. On the downside he couldn't feel his feet, and his legs ached as if knives had been thrust through his thighs. Each stabbing step strained his stamina, but he couldn't give up. Jack's life was in danger. Nobody else seemed concerned, bu the last thing Daniel would do while there was still breath in his body was leave his best friend behind in this God-forsaken place.

At last he reached the Ancient Chair where Jack had sat the last day they were all together. The stasis pod had to be nearby. Sloshing through the rising water, every step accompanied by the staccato drumming of dripping moisture. It had reached his knees, driving spikes through his aching muscles. He had to keep his footing somehow despite the pressure against his legs.

In the fading glow of his flashlight he could see a gleam up ahead. Just a few more feet and the pod was within reach. Stumbling, Daniel grabbed hold of the container to steady himself. With the icy cold fingers of his right hand, he gripped at the edge of the capsule. In a moment he was face to face with – an empty pod.

Slapped haphazardly on the pod door was a yellow post-it note that read in Jack's spikey writing, "Gone fishing."

"Jack!" Daniel shouted, his voice, raspy but resonant in the subglacial cavern, reverberated back to him. "Jack! Where are you?"

There were no other sounds but water dripping against rising water and the his words decaying in the frozen distance.

"Jack!" he tried again, his head aching with despair and frustration. "Come on, Jack. We've come all this way to take you back home, and you just go fishing? Jack! JACK!!!!"

16.
Sam knelt down and checked the wiring on the Signal Impulse Amplifier. Satisfied that the connections were in proper order, she stood up and returned to the Control Room. On the console deck next to the palm device, she placed the rune stone on the alloy plate and flipped the switch. For a moment the amplifier hummed, and the plate glowed like a strobe light.

In the Gate Room Sergeant Siler glanced up from the meter in his hand.

"Fully charged, Major," he reported.

Sam leaned forward in her chair and intently typed a few characters on the computer keyboard, then sat back and waited. The monitor went dark for a few seconds, only the blue-white cursor flashing in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. Then three different graphs appeared, one showing the audio controls, the second a graphic equalizer display, and the third a transphasal non-sequential conductor. Finally, a fourth image downloaded with the words "transmission telemetry" appearing above the face of a Roswell Gray.

"Telemetry established," she announced into the microphone.

It was difficult to still the elation in her voice. This was the first successful test run of the Signal Impulse Amplifier, and all systems were go.

Sergeant Siler gave the Major a thumbs up.

"That's it?" asked Doctor Weir.

"Yes, Ma'am," Sam smiled back at her boss.

"You've been working on this since SG-1 got back from Antarctica, Major," Doctor Weir said encouragingly. "How do we take it to the next level?"

"That will involve connecting the device to a naquadah generator to determine how far the signal actually goes in practicality. Once the audio interface is launched, we should be able to communicate with the Asgard as long as they're in our solar system, not just when one of their ships is in orbit around Earth."

Doctor Weir smiled. She wasn't entirely sure she understood what Sam was talking about – her field was political science which was not really a science at all – but in the short time she'd been in charge of the SGC, she'd learned to trust her people to know what they were doing. She gazed down into the Gate Room at the still, giant ring that held more secrets than anyone could imagine.

"So," Sam said.

"So," replied Doctor Weir. "Lunch?"

"Definitely," Sam answered with a smile. She thanked Sergeant Siler for his help, then pushed her chair back and stood up. "I'd like to see Daniel first if that's okay. He didn't even know me when I stopped by the infirmary this morning."

"He had another bad night, did he?"

"Yes, ma'am. His fever spiked, and they can't get it back down. Doctor Warner or Doctor Carmichael have tried everything. He just kept ranting that the Ancient Outpost was melting and Jack wasn't in the stasis pod."

"When I saw him last night, he swore that Doctor Warner had amputated his arm," said Doctor Weir.

Together they walked down the steps into the corridor that led to the elevator. Doctor Weir was unusually thoughtful.

"Doctor Weir, what is it?" asked Sam.

"It's nothing."

Sam stopped walking and touched her boss's arm.

"Liz?"

"I've been thinking an awful lot about what Teal'c said the other day," Doctor Weir admitted. Her eyebrows pulled together in concern.

"About Daniel. About his heart being broken. Sam, do you think your Signal Impulse Amplifier will work?"

"Yes, Ma'am, I'm pretty sure. Why?"

"Let's not talk in the hallway," Doctor Weir suggested, as a couple of airmen passed by.

The elevator doors opened, and the two women stepped inside. Once the doors were closed, she asked, "Will a naquadah generator really provide sufficient energy to propel a signal to the Asgard?"

"Provided the Asgard are in our solar system, yes," Sam replied, her suspicions growing.

"What if they're not in our solar system?"

"To boost the signal further than that would require the energy the Stargate draws from an open wormhole. Liz, what are you thinking?"
Doctor Weir's face remained inscrutable as the elevator doors opened on Level 21. Before Sam had an opportunity to press her further, however, they were almost bowled over by Teal'c who charged down the steps and headed toward the infirmary as they exited the elevator.

"Where's the fire, Teal'c?" Doctor Weir asked.

Teal'c paused, his body poised for action at a moment's notice.

"There is no fire, Doctor Weir," he answered deferentially. "But there is an emergency in the infirmary, and I have been summoned."

"Daniel?" asked Sam.

"Yes, Major Carter," the Jaffa replied.

He gave a perfunctory bow and broke into a trot in the direction of the medical unit. Sam and Doctor Weir ran after him through the double doors at the end of the hallway and into the ICU. At the entrance they halted, stayed by a tremendous commotion.

The room was filled with several doctors and orderlies. Daniel's frantic cries filled the ICU as two orderlies tried to subdue him.

"Sam! Teal'c! Help me! Oh, God, somebody help me!"

"Hold him," Doctor Warner ordered. "Lieutenant Evans, give me ten cc's of diazepam, – stat!"

Amid the confusion, Teal'c stepped purposefully into the fray.

"Daniel Jackson, calm yourself," he said.

"Teal'c, we've got to find Jack," Daniel shouted helplessly. "The pod's empty, and the ice cap is melting. Help me find him!"

Teal'c pushed his way past the two orderlies.

"Daniel Jackson," he repeated, his voice still stern but more softly this time. "Calm yourself."

"He won't hear you, Teal'c," Doctor Warner explained. A full syringe was handed to Doctor Warner. "Now if you'll excuse me," he said, "Doctor Jackson must be sedated."

"What are you about to administer, Doctor Warner?" Teal'c asked, his suspicious frown deepening as he easily removed the needle from the Doctor's hand.

"Doctor Jackson is delirious," the surgeon answered, taking the syringe from the Jaffa's massive hands. "Diazepam will allow him to get some rest. "

"Should you not treat the underlying cause of his delirium?" Teal'c asked, his broad face grave, immutable.

"Thank you for that suggestion," Doctor Warner snapped. "I suppose you have a medical degree from the University of Chulak that qualifies you to diagnosis exactly what Doctor Jackson's condition might be."

"Daniel Jackson is in this condition," Teal'c replied, his voice menacingly still, "because you have allowed it to happen, Doctor Warner."

Doctor Weir made her way into the fray and put a gentle hand on the Jaffa's arm. With her other hand she signaled both men to follow her to a more private location. After the door of an empty isolation room closed behind them, the two men continued to glare at one another.

"Have at it, gentleman," Doctor Weir said, folding her arms and standing with her back against the door.

Doctor Warner went first. "How dare you come into my infirmary and question my judgment," he growled, his usually pleasant face twisted and red with indignation.

"Daniel Jackson has not been well since you operated on his shoulder four days ago," Teal'c observed, his frown deepening. "He cannot eat, he continues in constant pain. His fever creeps higher by the hour, and his delirium worsens. Yet you do nothing but sedate him – when you know full well that such medications make him ill and that he has experienced addiction in the past."

"Everything I know to do is being done for him," Doctor Warner explained, more to Doctor Weir than to Teal'c.

"I do not believe that Doctor Fraiser would have taken this course of action, Doctor Warner."

"I am not Doctor Fraiser," the surgeon replied, red faced with rage.

"That is painfully obvious," Teal'c said crisply, his tone implying that he agreed with Doctor Warner's statement on many levels.

Doctor Weir unfolded her arms and approached the two men.

"Are you through?" she asked them. "Because I'd like to say something. Doctor Warner, I know you are doing everything you can to help Doctor Jackson, but maybe there's something you've overlooked. I believe it was Sherlock Holmes who said, ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' I'm asking you to find an improbability."

Doctor Warner began to speak but thought better of it. With a sigh that indicated he was still quite angry, he crossed the isolation room, swiped his card to open the door, and returned to the infirmary.

When they were alone, Doctor Weir spoke to the Jaffa, her voice gentle, addressing his concerns. "Teal'c, you are Daniel's friend. You want to protect him. That's as it should be. If you think Daniel's given up, it's your place as his friend to encourage him, to tell him that things are not as dire as he fears." To emphasize her meaning, she pointed in the direction of the Stargate seven levels below. "Tell him all is not lost. Tell him the Stargate will open again."

"I will not lie to him, Doctor Weir," Teal'c admitted.

"You won't have to," Doctor Weir assured the warrior. "He has my promise. And so do you."

* * *

The ice packs Sam helped the nurse place behind Daniel's knees and beneath his right arm in an attempt to bring his temperature down reminded her of the day they brought him back from Kelowna. She hadn't been allowed to touch him then, but she didn't hesitate now. She sat down on the edge of his bed and held his swollen and bruised right hand tenderly in hers. The caustic antibiotics had all but destroyed the veins, necessitating placement of the cannulas first in his forearm, now in his inner left thigh. The latest filtration site had already turned an angry red, indicating that it was only a matter of time before they would move the IV to the other leg.

His left arm – he insisted to Sam, as Doctor Weir told her, that Doctor Warner had removed it– was encased in a special pressure bandage to keep the circulation regular and prevent swelling. From time to time, the fingers curled into a fist, and Daniel cried out in pain. When he did, he grasped Sam's hand with his right, causing the puncture wounds to bleed through the gauze bandage.

Occasionally, his eyes met hers, a glimmer of recognition in them, but mostly they begged for relief. He murmured restlessly, speaking what she suspected was Ancient. Once in awhile he called out Jack's name, sometimes his wife's, at other times Janet's. No translation was necessary for his agonized pleas. The desperation and sorrow in Daniel's voice tugged at Sam's heart. As long as he lived, his losses would plague him.

"Major Carter."

Sam turned around at the sound of Teal'c's voice.

"Hi, Teal'c," she said, looking back at Daniel. "You and Doctor Warner get things straightened out?"

"We did not," the Jaffa admitted. "Nor do I feel the need to do so."

"I know what you mean," Sam replied. "Even if it wasn't intentional, I can't shake this feeling that he did something he shouldn't have done."

"I am inclined to agree. Doctor Weir has instructed him to look for the improbable. I am to assure Daniel Jackson that the Stargate will indeed open again."

"You are?" asked Sam, her eyes narrowing.

"Those were my instructions. But it will be another two months before that happens, if then."

"I don't think Daniel's got that long, Teal'c," Sam answered, flinching as Daniel squeezed her hand again.

She sat quietly for a few minutes, caressing the archaeologist's right arm, wishing that she could think of something that would give Daniel the will to continue the fight. Then she stood up abruptly.

"Stay with him, Teal'c," she said, adding, "Touch him. It seems to keep him calm."

Inclining his head at the suggestion, Teal'c asked, "Where are you going, Major Carter?"

"I'm going to look for an improbability of my own."

17.
Sam pressed her thumbs against her closed eyelids and turned her neck to one side to get the kink out. She'd been running simulations and probability studies for six hours without any success, and all she wanted to do was scream. Actually, all she wanted to do was go back down to the infirmary and hold Daniel's hand, but that wasn't going to help him.

In the middle of everything, Pete had called. He was on his way down from Denver and would reach her place before nine. Thankful he had clearance, Sam suggested that he come directly to the SGC so he could see Daniel.

"It's not looking good," she told him. "Doctor Warner thinks it could be a matter of days."

"Hang in there, Sam," he answered. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

He had called her every day since going back to Denver the morning after Daniel's surgery, just to see how the archaeologist was doing. It made her feel better knowing that Pete was comfortable with her friends, that he understood how important they were to her, that he cared enough about her to care about them. Although he was well liked by almost everyone at the SGC for both his courage and vulnerability, Daniel had few close friends beyond SG-1. Yet – unlike the Colonel and Teal'c who, alpha and beta males respectively, were at first less accepting of this new facet of her life – after a few low but nonthreatening growls from the lone wolf just to reassure himself of his place in the pack, transitory though it might be, Daniel and Pete had hit it off. Whatever the bond between them was, Sam was glad for it.

Sam glanced at her watch. It was almost nine. Pete was probably pulling into the parking garage about now. Despite her worries, she smiled and felt foolishly a-flutter. It was all she could do to keep from running down the hall to greet him at the elevator; but an Airman would be escorting him to her lab, so she'd just have to be patient.

Which came first – the smell of Chinese food or the realization that she hadn't eaten since very early this morning – she wasn't sure. Sam looked up from her computer to see Pete and his escort laden with several grocery bags.

"What's all this?" she asked, deliberately not getting up as the Airman lifted a bag onto her counter.

"I thought you might be hungry," Pete said with his quirky smile, his eyes lighting up at the sight of her. "Hey," he said to the Airman who was about to leave, "there's plenty here. Do you want something?"

"Thank you, sir, but I've eaten."

"Ya sure? Egg roll? Fried wonton?"

The Airman stood perfectly still, uncertain whether to leave or not.

"Shrimp toast?"

"Thank you, Airman," Sam said with a smile, mercifully releasing the Airman to his other duties.

"Chinese pizza?" Pete called out after him.

"Pete, stop it," Sam laughed as he came around the counter and kissed her.

"Was I supposed to tip him?" he asked, half-seriously.

"It's all right, Pete. But why so much food? There's enough here to feed to entire base."

He kissed her again, a little longer this time, a little more intimately.

"I missed you," he whispered.

Then he grabbed an egg roll from one of the bags and started eating.

"So, what are you doing?" he asked, looking over her shoulder at the computer screen.

Taking a deep breath, Sam launched into a lengthy explanation of how a naquadah generator works, an explanation that involved a lot of things that would have made Colonel O'Neill's eyes glaze over. Pete, however, listened intently, asking intelligent questions while opening a couple of cartons of Chinese food and pushing them closer to Sam.

"So naquadah, under the right conditions and with the proper controls in place, can produce a clean, efficient, and cost-effective source of energy with hundreds of practical applications here on Earth," Sam concluded.

"If we had an unlimited source – here on Earth," Pete replied, finishing his second egg roll and licking his fingers.

"That's the problem," she replied, as she opened a packet of chopsticks and dug into a box of chicken and broccoli. "There are literally thousands of planets out there with abundant supplies of the stuff, but it's so expensive to maintain off-world mining facilities that it will probably remain impractical to transport the ore for anything other than military purposes for the foreseeable future."

"So it's unlikely that the practical applications – here on Earth – will see the light of day anytime soon."

"Since we really can't tell anyone about naquadah or where it comes from, yes. I mean, we've been able to use a naquadah generator as an alternate power source for the Stargate on planets without a DHD. Hell, we could probably run this entire base without drawing on the local electrical facilities. A power plant run on naquadah energy could keep a city the size of New York lit up for ten years with little or no pollution."

"And all of this will help Danny how?" Pete asked, finally diverting her from science fiction to this reality.

Sam lowered her chopsticks.

"I don't know. It'll probably be the direction his career will take once the Gate opens again. We're going to need a seasoned negotiator to act as liaison between the military and corporate sector if any of this is to be put into practical use."

"And he'll hate it," Pete said quietly.

"What?"

"Danny will hate every minute of it. He's not a bureaucrat, Sam."

"Daniel's a brilliant negotiator. He's brokered half a dozen very complex treaties that will have far-reaching benefits for Earth and its allies. Don't underestimate him, Pete. He cares very deeply about what he does."

"Danny may not be what I'd call a man of action like Colonel O'Neill or Teal'c; but if he's chained to a desk, you won't like what he becomes."

Sam frowned, not wanting to acknowledge the accuracy of Pete's statement.

"Here I am eating Chinese food and talking about Daniel's future, and he may not even have one," she confessed. "I've wasted hours tonight trying to figure out something that will help him, and all I can do is look at schematics of a naquadah generator. How sad is that?"

"What should you be looking at?" he asked.

"A way to help Daniel. Pete, one of my best friends is dying, and there's nothing I can do for him. All he asks for is Colonel O'Neill."

"So bring him back," Pete said pragmatically.

"He's in Antarctica, Pete."

"Yeah, I know. You told me. He's frozen in one of those pod things you told me about."

"Stasis pod."

"Right. Stasis."

"Pete, we don't know how to sustain the stasis pod he's in, much less how to get him out of it."

"Can't you just open it?"

Sam's face told him he had asked the wrong question. Clicking on "File" from the drop-down menu, she clicked on "Open" and found the document she wanted. A diagram of the Signal Amplifier Device appeared on the monitor.

"One of the things I've been working on is a signaling device to see if we can contact the Asgard who helped the Colonel the last time he was in a similar situation."

"So why don't you do that?"

Sam looked at him.

"Why don't you signal these...people?"

"I don't even know for sure if we can. You see, we have this communication device that the Asgard gave us," Sam explained pointing to the depiction of the Rune Stone in the diagram, "but it only works if an Asgard ship is actually in Earth's orbit. I've been working on an interface with a naquadah generator that will boost the signal beyond that."

"Have you tried?"

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

"It's all pretty theoretical at the moment," Sam admitted.

"What's the worst thing that could happen?" asked Pete, diving into a container of shrimp with cashew nuts. "I mean, the absolute worst."

"The naquadah generator might create a feedback loop that would turn back on itself and cause a pretty big explosion."

"What about a PDS like the one that chick with the ray gun had?"

"PDS?"

"You know, that personal something shield."

"You mean a personal defense shield?"

"Yeah. That's it. What every police chief in the world dreams about."

"I think what you mean is a force field dampener," Sam suggested.

"Do I?" asked Pete, unsure but not overly concerned that he'd got it wrong.

"Yes, and the chick's name is Sarah. Once upon a time she and Daniel were pretty close. You need to remember that just in case."

"In case what?

"Just in case. Now back to the dampener – we haven't quite figured out how to create one of those. We've got a frequency jammer.

That's what we used to stop Osiris –"

"The chick with the ray gun," Pete interjected.

"– from beaming out of Daniel's room that morning. Anyway, we don't even know how the Asgard communication stone works."

"Have you got any aluminum foil?"

"What?"

"When I was a kid, I used to make my own radios – you know those things with crystals and lots of copper wire? I used to wrap the coat hanger antenna in aluminum foil to boost the reception. Alcoa Wrap worked the best."

"That's it," Sam said suddenly, jumping up from her stool. She put her arms around her boyfriend's neck and hugged him. "Daniel's right.

You are pretty smart for a cop."

"What did I say?"

"The simulations have shown that the signal will travel pretty far, but reception isn't going to be so great on our end. Now, something like trinium which is a hundred times lighter than steel but at least twice as strong – "

"Stronger than Alcoa Wrap?"

"– a lot stronger, Pete. Trinium just might do it. It could work as both a signal booster and receptor. Pete, you're a genius."

"Trinium, huh?" he asked, glossing over his contribution to her science project. "That's the stuff that Doctor What's-His-Name put in Danny's shoulder, right?"

"No, I don't think so," Sam said doubtfully. "Trinium has lots of everyday uses, but it hasn't been approved for medical applications."

"That's what he said, Sam. I was there. So was Teal'c. The surgeon said he was going to use a trinium plate and trinium screws to set Danny's collarbone. He even showed us the stuff. That's when Danny looked like he was gonna pass out. He tried to book, but I'll tell ya, that Teal'c can really fill a doorway."

"You're absolutely sure Doctor Warner said trinium?" Sam asked, just to be certain.

"I never heard of it before, but yeah."

"Doctor Warner said everything he did was routine," Sam murmured to herself. "But he never mentioned trinium."

"That significant?"

"We know in some humans living on other plans – like the Orbanians, for instance – trinium occurs naturally. It's part of their biological makeup. At the present time we have no way of knowing what's an acceptable level of trinium in the human body – if there even is an acceptable level. I mean, everybody's got metals of some kind in their blood to one degree or another, but it usually isn't very high. If it is – like when nickel leaches out of jewelry – then it can cause anything from an annoying skin rash at the point of contact to anaphylactic shock or severe systemic infections. Pete, you're absolutely sure you heard the word trinium?"

Pete nodded assuredly. "I'm a cop, Sam. I'm sort of detail oriented."

Sam leaned forward and kissed him. Then she let him go and turned her attention to the computer, closing down the schematics that had engaged far too much of her time and logging on to the base online reference library. A quick search of the files didn't turn up anything, but undeterred, Sam made a few keystrokes, and up popped a login screen.

"What are you doing?" Pete asked, his suspicions aroused.

Filling in the user identification bar and responding to the prompt for a password, Sam waited while yet another database opened on the screen.

"Thank you, Colonel Maybourne," Sam murmured with a wry smile.

"Who?"

"Another time."

She typed in the words "trinium" and "human trials," and six matches came up. After digesting what was on the screen, she began to read out loud.

This recommendation is dated February nineteenth – the day before Janet died. Oh, my God, Pete," she said, gulping back an emotion she wasn't sure she understood, "I wonder if Doctor Warner has even seen this report."

"I dunno, Sam. He seems like a pretty straight-up guy. I didn't get any strange vibes from him."

"He didn't say anything like, ‘This is a new procedure' or..."

"Nope. He was pretty casual about it. Like he'd done it a million times."

"This doesn't make any sense. Janet would have known. She would never have permitted any experimental procedure to be performed on SGC personnel."

"Sam?"

"Something's going on, Pete," Sam replied, powering down her computer and standing up.

Pete grabbed her arm as she started toward the door.

"Where're you going?" he asked.

" I have to talk to Doctor Weir."

"And what do I do with all this food?"

"I'll ask someone to move it to the Commissary," she promised, her forehead indicating her concern had nothing to do with the food. She kissed Pete, then said, "I think we just came up with an improbability. I hope it's not too late."

18.
The Gate activation klaxon had been going off for five minutes. Dutifully, Daniel struggled to sit up, ripping the oxygen tube from his face. If they were opening the Gate, he wanted to be in the Gate Room with the others when it happened. He struggled to breathe, face was pale, body drenched in sweat, blue eyes shining from the unrelenting fever. Slowly, one foot let go of the bed rail and touched down onto the floor. Daniel gave a sigh of relief, the tile cool beneath his burning sole. He let the other foot down with a similar sigh. Then he pushed himself unsteadily off the bed.

"What are you doing, Danny?" Pete asked from the doorway.

"I have to find it," Daniel answered cryptically, his voice hushed, hoarse, his words tinted with secrecy.

"Find what?" Pete wondered.

Daniel looked up at the detective, his eyes darting from side to side. "My arm," he answered. "They took it, you know. I saw it happen. I just have to figure out where they put it."

"I'll help you," Pete offered.

"You'll help me look for it?" Daniel asked, his suspicious eyes softening.

The pain in his groin as he took a step forward made his knees tremble. He knew what it was. He wasn't going anywhere as long as he was anchored to the bed like a ship to a dock. Well, this wouldn't be the first time he'd freed himself from a difficult situation.
Just in time, Pete stopped Daniel's right hand as it moved under the hospital gown.

"You don't wanna disconnect your power cord, Danny," he said, holding the hand securely.

"But I can't look for my arm if –"

"Why don't you get back into bed," Pete suggested. "I've got some wonton soup here for you."

"I don't have time for wonton soup," Daniel argued. "I have to get dressed."

"What for?"

"They're opening the Gate."

"That's just Sam, Danny. She's testing that Signal Amplifier thing of hers."

Disappointment and confusion spoiled Daniel's good looks. "They won't let me go through the Gate if I don't have both arms," he said, gasping for breath.

"Let me worry about that arm of yours, okay? You get back into bed now."

"Pete, please, I have to get out of here. I have to find Sha're."

The last words were spoken with a tear in them. An image came into his mind, a memory so painful, he had been unable to speak of it since it happened. If only he could go back in time and change things; if only he hadn't deciphered the Gate, Sha're would still be alive and well on Abydos. She might belong to someone else, but she'd be alive. And he wouldn't have to struggle under the weight of the knowledge of what he had done.

"Don't you mean Sarah?" Pete asked, confused. He hadn't heard this other name before.

A flash of anger crept over the exhaustion in Daniel's words. "Sha're is my wife," he replied. His voice cracked. He didn't have enough oxygen to speak more than a few words at a time. "Sarah is someone...someone I used to know. I have to go back, Pete...through the Gate so I can...find Sha're... and I can't go through...with just one arm. Jack said no. Jack wouldn't help me." He finished plaintively. "We saw her, and he wouldn't help me."

"Well, then I guess we have to find your arm then, don't we?"

Daniel pulled his right hand away from Pete and swayed, his eyes closing to stop the room from spinning. Pete gently eased him onto the bed and put the oxygen tube back where it belonged.

"We have to go through the Gate, Pete,' Daniel insisted, the words tumbling out of him so fast as he tried to gulp in enough air to keep from passing out, yet in such short, punctuated phrases that Pete couldn't catch them all. With his good hand, Daniel grasped Pete's shirt and drew their faces together. "We have to find Jack first...The outpost in Antarctica...it's melting and Jack's gone fishing...If we don't open the Gate...we won't know when they're coming. And they are coming, Pete. The Gould are coming...and all we have are baked beans."

Deciding not to await an explanation for that one, Pete grinned his Dudley Do-right grin. "Hey, Danny, I have a great idea. How ‘bout a game of baseball? You like baseball, don't ya?"

Casting a wary eye at the detective, Daniel asked more slowly, "What about Jack?"

"He's up first."

"But he went fishing," Daniel insisted.

"He came back," Pete assured him with a shrug.

Daniel settled back against the pillows and closed his eyes again briefly, breathing hard. Self-consciously, he tugged at the hem of the hospital gown to cover the bruises on his thighs left by the IV that had to be moved every few hours as the veins burned out from the caustic antibiotics. Pete pretended not to notice as he pulled the covers up to the archaeologist's chest.

Adopting his baseball announcer's voice, Pete continued. "And following O'Neill in tonight's lineup we have Sam Carter at first base and batting second." He waited a moment for Daniel's approval. When he saw a slight nod, he went on. "Batting third and playing second is Teal'c from Chulak. Chulak's a big baseball planet, folks, and I understand that Teal'c's son Ry'ac has the makings of a fine ballplayer himself. Got his first glove from the Jaffa's good friend Jack O'Neill."

Against the edge of the blankets, Daniel's slender fingers worked anxiously. His chest rose and fell rapidly, his breathing still labored.

"And playing shortstop and batting clean-up is Doctor Daniel Jackson."

"Me?" he asked softly, his blue eyes wide with astonishment, his lips parted in anticipation. "You want me?"

"Sure, Danny, why not?"

"Nobody ever picks me," Daniel answered slowly, licking his lips anxiously. He whispered confidentially, "I'm not very good, you know. Besides, I lost my left arm."

"Hmmmm, that could be a problem," Pete admitted, rubbing his jaw. "Where have you looked for it?"

"Everywhere," Daniel said, his voice defeated. Worry, pain, and illness had worn him down like a heavily trodden road. "Doctor Warner took it, and I haven't been able to find it anywhere."

"Well, you know what? You've come to the right guy. You know why? ‘Cause I'm a cop. I help people find things all the time." He pulled a small leather-covered book out of his back pocket. "Now, Doctor Jackson, can you tell me what this missing arm looked like?"

Daniel stared at him for a few moments, his eyes glistening mournfully.

"You're the first person to believe me," he murmured, unable to stop a tear from running down his cheek.

"No, no, no, Danny, don't," Pete said, shoving a wad of Kleenex into Daniel's hand. "It's okay. I'll find it, I promise. We have a ballgame to play, so out with it. What's this arm look like?"

A furrow formed on Daniel's forehead. He glanced down at his right arm.

"A lot like this one," he said slowly, relaxing finally as the oxygen filled his lungs and breathing became easier. "Except it's the opposite. And it's not all bruised. At least it wasn't. I don't think. I can't remember."

"Any distinguishing marks?"

He stretched his right arm across his chest so Pete could see his triceps.

"It didn't have any freckles like these."

Pete wrote something down in his book, speaking under his breath as the pen moved.

"Similar to right arm, no bruises, no freckles. Right. Anything else?"

Daniel shook his head.

"That's all I can think of."

"And where was the last place you saw it?"

"In the operating room."

"And that would have been when? Monday morning?"

Daniel thought for a minute. No, he remembered it clearly. He had known surgery would be a mistake. He had tried to make Doctor Warner stop. He could still hear the sound of his flesh being sliced open before the anesthesia finally took hold.

"Sunday night," he said quite clearly. "You and Sam and Teal'c brought me here. Pete, can you really find it?"

"You bet, Danny. That's what buddies do for each other, right? They help each other out. We're buddies, right?"

"Is that what we are?" Daniel asked. "Buddies?"

The word didn't come easily to him. He'd never been "buddies" with anyone. He wondered if he should be hurt that Jack never called him "buddy."

"I hope so," Pete answered seriously. "I know you care about Sam. That's good enough for me."

That made Daniel feel a little better. His slight smile returned.

"Buddies. Am I right?" asked Pete.

"Yeah, I guess so. Can we get back to my arm?"

"As a matter of fact, I think I know where it is."

"You do?"

"Yep. I'm just gonna wander over here to this side of the bed and poke around in the blankets a bit. Basically the same color as the other one, you say, right?"

"Yeah."

"It's got a hand and fingers and all, right? Just the opposite of that one over there?"

"Yeah. You find something?"

"Maybe. There's something here," Pete announced, lifting the edge of the pillows that supported Daniel's left arm. He shifted the covers around until they lay over the "missing" limb, then gently touched Daniel's hand. "You feel anything?" he asked.

His face serious, Daniel waited for a sensation. His breathing grew a little faster. He started to nod, slowly at first, his eyelashes fluttering rapidly.

The nurse had been watching the gradual change in his vital signs on the monitor at her station. She checked her watch, then approached Daniel's bedside with a syringe.

"It's time for his medication," she explained to Pete who waved her away. "Sir, his heart rate has increased. I should give it to him now."

"Hang on a couple of minutes, okay?" Pete suggested.

He drew the blanket aside and directed Daniel's attention with a jerk of his head. There on the pillow lay his left hand. Daniel's eyes locked onto Pete's.

"Is there any more than that?" he asked tremulously.

"Let's see."

He pulled the blanket aside, and the rest of the arm came into view.

"Can you put it back?" Daniel pleaded.

"Back where?" asked Pete, not quite understanding.

"Where it belongs. On my shoulder. It's not too late, is it?"

"No, no, Danny, it's not too late. Might hurt a little, but I can put it back. Are you ready?"

Daniel nodded, his face grim as he prepared himself.

Holding the hot arm lightly in his hands, Pete advised him to turn his head away.

"It might not be very pretty," he said apologetically.

Obediently, Daniel turned his head to his right, but his eyes strayed back to the left. Even so, he could only sensing pressure on his upper arm. He grimaced, then heard a click that made him a little sick in his stomach, but he didn't make a sound.

"There ya go. All done. Now, are you ready to play some baseball?"

Bravely, Daniel nodded again, pulling at the edge of his blankets again, his eyes darting around the infirmary in search of yet something else.

"Now what is it?" asked Pete.

"I can't play without my glasses," Daniel answered softly.

From his jacket pocket, Pete pulled a pair of sunglasses and slipped them over Daniel's ears.

"Will these do?" he asked.

"It's pretty dark," Daniel said.

"It's a night game," Pete replied.

"Oh. Okay."

With his right hand, Daniel drew his left hand up to his chest where he had been used to having it when he wore the special sling. He held onto it like an old friend whom he'd not seen in a long time. The nurse rearranged the pillows to give him more support.

"Ready now?" Pete asked.

"Uh-huh," he said softly.

"All right then. The bases are loaded. It's the bottom of the ninth."

"Quick game," Daniel commented through a yawn.

Pete smiled up at the nurse. Daniel's blood pressure was settling down again, and his heart beat was returning to a less erratic rhythm.

"SGC is down by a run," Pete announced. "O'Neill looks runnerish over there on third. Carter, too. The pitcher steps off the mound, looks over at O'Neill, and throws to second to keep Carter on the bag. Now he's ready. He gives Jackson a long look. Into the windup, he releases. Low and inside for strike one."

"I can't see the ball," Daniel murmured with frustration.

"And the next pitch is inside. Strike two. Looks like he's trying to push Jackson off the plate. Jackson moves closer, digs in. This time it's out of the stretch. Jackson leans in for the pitch. It doesn't hit him, but he's down. Don't think he's hurt. And the ball gets away from the catcher. Jackson bounces back up. He's waving O'Neill home."

"Come home, Jack," Daniel murmured, gesturing with the clumsiness of sleep. "Come on home."

"We're tied up, folks," Pete continued. "And oh, no, here comes Carter rounding third. Can she make it? Is she gonna make it? The catcher's scrambling, but he can't hold onto the ball. Carter slides head first into home plate. And the SGC wins by a run. A great team effort! Couldn't have done it if Jackson hadn't been willing to take a hit for the team. Yes, sirree, the SGC is gonna go all the way this season, thanks to Doctor Daniel Jackson. He's the team hero."

The nurse drew the sunglasses from Daniel's peaceful face and handed them back to Pete.

"I think he's falling asleep, sir," said the nurse, putting the undispensed syringe back on the tray.

"Guess he got worn out," Pete answered. "Are you worn out, Danny?"

"Pete, could you do something else for me?" Daniel asked, his words just audible above the sound of the monitor nearby.

"Sure, anything, Danny. We're buddies, right?"

With a deep sigh, Daniel nodded. "Could you please call me Daniel?"

"Is that what you want?"

Daniel nodded again, not quite asleep yet but already in that place beyond speech.

"I can do that," Pete replied, patting Daniel's good shoulder. "All you had to do was ask."

19.
Ashen-faced, the chief surgeon held the report in a trembling hand.

"Dear God," he murmured. The paper fell onto Doctor Weir's desk as he lowered his head into his hands. "Oh, dear God."

Doctor Weir stood up and walked around her desk to the credenza where she filled a glass with water. She was relieved now that the truth was out in the open, but this was not going to be an easy interview. The Chief Surgeon of the SGC was a proud man. In Elizabeth's experience most surgeons were. Not as arrogant as cardiologists, perhaps, but a close second. However, Gregory Warner was well known for his professionalism, both toward his patients and the medical staff. She'd rather be negotiating with a two-headed alien than have to be the one who picked Doctor Warner up and dusted him off.

"Doctor Warner," she said, holding the glass out to him, "I know you never intended for this to happen. The day Doctor Fraiser was killed must have been horrendously chaotic. "

"That's not acceptable in the military," the surgeon replied, drawing himself up in his seat. "Not for what I've let happen. Doctor Jackson's lab tests have all been pointing in this direction, and I didn't want see it."

"Patients have reactions all the time," Doctor Weir assured him.

"No, Ma'am. Not here. Not at the SGC. Not like this. I was so sure I was right."

"Why don't we concentrate on what to do next?" Doctor Weir suggested.

"I'll resign, of course."

That took Elizabeth by surprise. She hadn't expected this kindly man to fall on his sword.

"I was thinking." she said quickly, "more in terms of how we can help Doctor Jackson."

"Yes, of course," Doctor Warner answered, embarrassed, but recovering quickly. "Ordinarily, I would recommend that the trinium be removed immediately."

"Ordinarily?"

"Doctor Jackson's in grave condition, Doctor Weir. I doubt he'd survive another procedure."

"I don't want to put any more pressure on you, Doctor Warner," she said firmly, "but Doctor Jackson is a vital member of this organization. When operations resume in a few months, he's going to be needed. And he will most certainly die if you do nothing."

"Doctor Weir, I think you should find another surgeon –"

"Doctor Warner, understand this. What you and I say in this room stays in this room. No one else needs to know about this."

"Major Carter and Teal'c know. They're Doctor Jackson's best friends."

"And as such, they only want what's best for him."

"You can't cover this up, Ma'am. I am responsible."

"Nobody's covering up anything. I'm certainly not interested in laying blame. You're human. You made a mistake. You can fix it."

"I was Doctor Jackson's first physician when he came back to Earth eight years," Doctor Warner said solemnly. "He had just lost his wife. He was alone and afraid, just a skinny, nerdy kid. Nobody thought he'd cut it, but he surprised us all. I've treated him for everything from staff weapon wounds to appendicitis. I took the bullet out of his leg when he got back from Nicaragua. I watched him bring Janet Fraiser through the Stargate for the last time not two months ago. And now Daniel's dying, Doctor Weir, all because I was too busy that day to read my reports."

"But you have now," Doctor Weir said, sitting down in the chair beside the chief surgeon. "You've read the report that matters. Now it's time to save Daniel's life."

20.
Despite the pale face and the dreadful bruising on his right arm, Daniel looked peaceful as he slept. Teal'c hesitated to wake his friend, but the sooner he was told that Doctor Weir had given her consent in order to save his life, the sooner he'd be well and back on his. The surgery, Doctor Warner had assured Teal'c and Sam, was not without risks in view of Daniel's weakened condition; but it should take no more than three hours from start to finish. The infected tissue would have to be cut away, the trinium removed, a surgical steel plate and screws put in its place to stabilize the clavicle – if the bone itself wasn't infected. Daniel faced additional surgery once the bone healed, followed by possible skin grafts and months of physical therapy. But at least he'd be alive – all provided there were no complications.

Leaning close, Teal'c murmured Daniel's name but got no response. On the monitor Daniel's pulse barely registered. Then twice in succession it jumped at irregular intervals, and Daniel let out a small moan. Sam and Teal'c exchanged worried looks until the eyelids flickered, and the tired blue eyes, glistening with fever, opened and glanced from one to the other.

"Hey, guys," he whispered. His words were as sluggish as his heartbeat, but his forehead wrinkled in active curiosity. "What's happening?"

Exhaling sharply with relief, Teal'c drew up a chair for Sam while he remained standing near the top of the bed.

"What?" Daniel asked, looking at the two of them again.

Sam leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees, her hands clasped together. "Daniel, we need to talk to you about something."

"What time is it?" he asked, as if she hadn't spoken.

"Nearly six o'clock."

"In the morning or at night?"

It was a logical question. Being twenty-one floors underground made it difficult to tell the time.

Reaching out and taking his hand in hers, Sam smiled at him. "Morning."

He tried to lift his head to look around.

"Where's Pete?" he asked.

"He's asleep in one of the VIP rooms," replied Sam."You had him up pretty late last night."

"We played baseball," Daniel said.

He settled back against the pillow and smiled at the memory. It was hard to tell what was real and what wasn't anymore. The pain in his shoulder had to be real. Pain always was.

"You did?" Sam asked, clasping his hand.

"Hm-m...shortstop. We won. The SGC, that is. Sam, I like Pete."

"Daniel Jackson, you have been in the infirmary for nearly a week," Teal'c observed solemnly.

"Yeah, Teal'c," Daniel answered, the flash of enthusiasm dissipating quickly. "I know."

Moving forward in her seat, closer to the bed, Sam said, "Daniel, we have to talk."

"O...kay," he responded suspiciously.

"Doctor Warner knows what's wrong with you," she told him.

He let go of Sam's hand and slowly raised it to his throbbing shoulder.

"It's broken," he said softly, his eyelashes fluttering to underscore the obvious.

"It's the trinium, Daniel," Sam continued. "You're allergic to it, and it's made you very sick. It has to come out. Doctor Warner says it's risky, but he's willing to try. But we all agreed that the final decision is yours. So..."

"So..." Daniel echoed. After a moment, he turned his eyes toward Teal'c and said, "He doesn't have to amputate, does he? Because he did once already, ya know. Then Pete found my arm and put it back, but it really hurts a lot now."

"No, Daniel, he's not going to amputate your arm," Sam reassured him. "But there's not a lot of time."

"I take it the chances aren't very good."

"They are not," Teal'c admitted, his tone grave.

A furrow formed on Daniel's forehead.

"Promise me something, Teal'c," he said.

Teal'c brought his broad hand to rest lightly on Daniel's forehead, smoothing the creases with his thumb.

"If it is in my power, Daniel," the Jaffa answered with a encouraging smile.

"Promise me you'll do everything you can to find Jack."

"The Colonel is in Antarctica," Sam assured him, taking his hand in hers again.

Squeezing her hand, Daniel insisted, "No, Sam, he's gone."

"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said firmly, his hand moving from Daniel's face to his shoulder, "Colonel O'Neill in a stasis pod at the Ancient Outpost where we left him a month ago."

"He's not there, Teal'c," Daniel replied, frustration coloring his words, forcing his heart to beat a little faster. "He's gone fishing. That's what the note said."

He pulled his hand away from Sam's, and his fingers began working furiously.

"Easy, Daniel," warned Sam.

"Sam," he said urgently. "Promise me."

As gently as possible, Sam took hold of the busy fingers and held them with both her hands to keep them still. With strength that surprised her, Daniel drew her hand toward his chest.

"Promise me," he pleaded. "No matter what happens to me, Sam. Promise me you'll never stop looking."

"Daniel, Doctor Warner wants to get you into surgery as soon as possible," Sam replied, trying to impress on him the importance of making a decision.

The irregularity of his heartbeat sped up.

"Promise me, Sam, Teal'c."

"We promise, Daniel," Sam said reassuringly. She leaned for and kissed his cheek. With a smile, she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, "See you on the other side."

"We will never stop in our search, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said, tenderly clasping the archaeologist's forearm to his. "When you are well again, the Stargate will open, and O'Neill will be returned to us."

He tried to call them back as they left the ICU, but he couldn't make the words leave his mouth. The monitor measured his unsteady heartbeat while the seconds ticked away. Soon they'd come to wheel him into the operating room, and Doctor Warner would begin to remove his arm – he'd already done it once – and God knew what else he was going to do. With all his heart, he wished Janet was here. She'd put a stop to this. She'd never have let it happen in the first place.

A familiar sound like the ringing of deep Tibetan chimes made him shift his vision to the left, but the accompanying flash of light forced his eyes closed.

"Janet?"

No answer.

Daniel's innate curiosity overcame the extreme fatigue that had him trapped inside his failing body.

"Jack?"

"Aveo."

"Jack?" he asked again. "Is that you?"

"Ita. Fesset me."

"I'm tired, too. What are you doing here?"

As he asked the question, Daniel tried to push himself upright, but a firm hand pressed him kept him still.

"Tempus fugit," Jack murmured.

"This isn't real," Daniel replied.

"Veritato," Jack assured him.

"No, it's not."

"Est."

"No."

"Est. Ideo piscatato."

"Piscatao? Piscus. That means fish. You were fishing?"

Jack nodded.

"This is nuts."

"Putare me senti."

"You couldn't show up when I have my books with me?"

"Daniel!"

"What?"

Jack tapped his watch.

"In a hurry, Jack?"

With a sigh, Jack drew his hands together until there were narrow hollows between the encircled fingers. Then he pointed upwards.

"Asgard?" Daniel ventured.

With his index finger, Jack tapped the end of his nose to indicate that Daniel had guess his attempt at charades.

"Not a dream?"

Jack shook his head.

"Hologram?"

Again Jack shook his head. Then he stretched out his hand and placed it on Daniel's infected shoulder.

Suddenly, all the pain in Daniel's body seemed drawn toward Jack's hand. It migrated from the latest intravenous line placed in his foot, from his bruised and swollen thighs, his beleaguered private parts, distressed digestive track, aching chest, and injured shoulder.

"Jack, what's going on?" he gasped.

Jack didn't answer. He lowered his head, the effort of taking away his friend's pain drawing down his own energy.

"Penitato," he murmured. "Penitato."

"Sorry?" Daniel translated. "Why?"

"Peccatum. Trinium non amovero."

Stronger now, Daniel inhaled and pushed himself up to his right elbow.

"It's not your fault, Jack. Look, I'm better." He moved his left hand to prove it. "Ow!"

"Ossa nunc fractuo. Warner necessatas secare et chalybeium conlocare."

"I really wish you could speak English."

"Eundum est mihi."

Daniel closed his eyes in frustration, his mind running down pages from his Latin dictionary in a desperate effort to better understand what Jack was telling him. There was no word mihi that he could translate. Migratio, remove; migratu, transport; migro, to migrate, to depart.

"Depart?" he asked. "You're going to depart? Jack, you can't leave. You just got here."

"Daniel," Jack replied wearily.

"Where are you going?"

"Daniel Jackson."

"What?"

Jack shook his head and pointed upward once more. "Naveo longa Asgardi."

"Naveo longa Asgardi," Daniel repeated slowly. "Navis longa is a longship. That's what the Romans called their warships. You're going to an Asgard warship? They found you? You mean, Sam's Signal Impulse Amplifier actually works?"

Jack shrugged, his expression making it clear that he had no clue if the device had done anything.

"Naveo praetori Thori. Daniel Jackson."

"Thor named his flagship the Daniel Jackson?"

"Impudens maxima," Jack replied impishly.

"Pretty cool?" Daniel translated loosely.

"Et deleos non."

"And not blown up?" Daniel frowned. He knew how his luck ran. Solemnly, he added, "Not yet."

"Redireo," Jack said, his dark eyes expressive, a lop-sided smile brightening the rugged face.

"You'll be back? When, Jack? When will you be back?"

"Quam primum. Promittereo."

A firm hand cupped Daniel's cheek.

"Valeo, amicus."

Before another word could pass between them, the hollow ringing of Tibetan chimes and a brilliant flash of light filled the isolation room, and Daniel found himself alone again. For a few moments, he lay still, not at all certain what had just happened. Okay, so the fever had finally gone to his brain, and he just experienced a major delusional psychotic break. Or...

21.
A gentle spring rain fell on the cemetery where three friends stood together in silent communion with the dead.

While Sam held a large umbrella overhead, Teal'c took the flowers cradled in Daniel's arm and placed them in the new paper maché vase that stood at the head of the grave near the plaque bearing Janet Frazier's name. As he knelt, he bowed his head and pressed a closed fist against his chest in respect. Wiping away a tear, Sam swallowed, tilted her head to one side, keeping her thoughts to herself. Beside her Daniel stood to attention, lips pressed tightly together, the arm that had held the flowers now adding support to the other arm swathed in a white sling. His left coat sleeve hung over his shoulder, exposing his body to the weather.

"Come on," Sam said softly, sensing that it wasn't a good idea to keep the archaeologist standing out in the wind too long. "You just got out of the infirmary this morning."

"Yeah," Daniel answered, his voice distant, his blue eyes focused on the flowers. He didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay here and talk with Janet. There was a lot to tell her, but he couldn't do it with his friends breathing down his neck. "In a minute, okay?"
Sam pulled up the hood on her jacket and handed him the umbrella.

"We'll wait in the car," she said. "Let's go, Teal'c. You can drive."

"Thank you, Major Carter," Teal'c replied as he deftly caught the keys Sam tossed to him.

When he was alone, Daniel stepped a little closer.

"Guess I won't be driving anywhere anytime soon," he said. "Long story short: I crashed my car. Broke my shoulder. Almost died. Jack saved my life, or at least got rid of the infection long enough for Doctor Warner to replace the trinium with surgical steel, and now I'm on the mend. Yep, Jack saved my life. You know, it's ironic. We leave him in a stasis pod down in Antarctica, and he still manages to save my life. Apparently, Sam's Signal Impulse Amplifier worked. So...Jack's with the Asgard...we think. Unless, of course, it was all just a bad dream. Wish all of it...all of this," he added, pointing his chin out to encompass the grave site, "were just a bad dream. I miss you...uh, we all miss you...I miss you. See ya soon."

It had stopped raining. Overhead the clouds were parting, and the sun peered through. He deftly closed the umbrella with one hand. Gazing up at the clearing sky, he allowed himself to smile.

"Yeah, you, too, Jack."

Turning on his heel, he headed toward Sam's car.